Bridgetown.
The Almond Beach Village property at Heywoods in St. Peter, is to be purchase from Neal and Massy for US$53 million with a down payment of US$25 and the balance of US$28million to be paid over a period of three years.
According to a source the decision was made by the Cabinet who then instructed the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc (BTI) to to work with Sandals Resort International “to have a Sandals Beaches Resort in Barbados within three to four weeks”,.
Last week the BTI decided that Sandals be given the nod to operate and manage a rebuilt Almond under the Beaches brand, with an option to purchase the property at a future date.
In a very brief dismissal of the only competing written offer, a Cabinet document titled Long-term Operator for the Almond Beach Village at Heywoods, St. Peter, stated:
“Crane Resorts proposes to buy one-third of the property for one-third of the purchase price paid by the Government, with an option to purchase the remaining two thirds … in the future. The plan would be for the development of the villa accommodation for sale by way of time share. There is also a proposal for the short term operation of Almond. This proposal is quite similar to the existing Crane model, which involves building accommodation based on sales and may therefore take a full decade to fully realise its potential. It will therefore fail to achieve increased visitor arrivals in the next few years and will be unable to assist Barbados in protecting its airlift', the document said.
The Cabinet document explained, the Sandals proposal involved the building of a 426-room, all-inclusive family resort “which will allow Barbados to regain its share of the families market which was lost with the closure of Almond Resorts. These will be large family rooms with on average six persons per room.”
Based on the calculations made, this potentially will result in an additional 112,684 visitors to Barbados annually.
“This large number of visitors will protect airlift for the entire tourism industry in Barbados and contribute to an increase in visitor spending. It is also worthy of note that Almond, at its peak, accounted for an additional 25,000 visitors annually. The Sandals proposal would increase this number by a factor in excess of four…
“While it can be argued that the issue of a long-term operator for the Heywoods property should be the subject of a public tender, it is the view of the Ministry of Tourism that the need for the return of the room inventory to production is extremely urgent.
“In addition, it is also believed that a tendering process is unlikely to result in a better operator than Sandals since the only other major all-inclusive operator in the Caribbean region was Almond Resorts Inc., which is now closed", the document said.
