Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe confirmed that the Pinnacle Entertainment group will get the new casino contract to operate the gaming facility adjacent to the world class resort at the Four Seasons Emerald Bay Resort in Exuma.
“We believe that it will be open by September, October this year,” said Minister Wilchcombe. “That casino will significantly impact not only Exuma but also the southern Bahamas in particular because a lot of people are moving back to Exuma from the rest of The Bahamas.
“Exumians who had moved out looking for opportunities, are now moving back home,” he added.
According to a 2004 Exuma Tourism In Review report, stopover visitors to the island contributed about $48.4 million or 2.5 percent to the total $1.7 billion generated from stopover business to The Bahamas.
The report also indicated that the hotel sector saw tremendous growth in all hotel indicators, mostly because of nearly a full year of operation of the Four Seasons Emerald Bay property.
Based on reports from The Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board, room revenue increased by 963%, room nights sold by 221%, and available room nights by 208%.
Pinnacle Entertainment announced last December that it had signed a letter of intent to sublease premises from Emerald Bay to operate a casino adjacent to the Four Seasons.
The casino will be approximately 5,000-square-feet in size and require an investment of approximately $5 million.
But officials indicated that this was contingent upon the Company receiving approvals from the government, including the Hotel Corporation of the Bahamas and the Gaming Board of the Bahamas, and execution of a final lease agreement.
The Four Seasons Resort has been billed as one of the best properties in the region. It opened in Fall 2003 and quickly received critical acclaim.
The 183-room property features an oceanside Greg Norman championship golf course set on 470 pristine acres.
The resort was included on Conde Nast Traveler’s eighth annual “Hot List,” which recognizes the top new hotels around the world.
But there are others areas for potential growth and where new opportunities could be created, the tourism minister conceded.
“Now you need Bahamians to open some restaurants, nightclubs and other businesses, maybe a nice mall and the rest. The potential is just enormous,” said Mr. Wilchcombe. “Abaco, Bimini all the islands are doing well. The island that we need to work on and we are placing a lot of emphasis on right now is Grand Bahama because Grand Bahama should be doing no less than a million visitors plus a year.”
In an earlier interview, the tourism minister had indicated that visitor arrivals to the island of Grand Bahama were exceeding available hotel rooms. Currently there is a 70 % occupancy rate.
There are only approximately 2,400 hotel rooms.
The tourism report noted that Exuma’s share of overall tourist arrivals in the Caribbean did not slip in 2004, and clearly exceeded the CTO’s estimate of seven percent growth in tourist arrivals for the Caribbean.
In 2004, the 32,000 stopover visitors coming to the Exumas represented about 0.1% of the 21.8 million tourists visiting the Caribbean. This compares to 1.7% for GBI, 4.2% for Nassau and 0.4% for Abaco.
By: Stephen Gay, The Bahama Journal
