Bahamian Resort Shines Positive Light On Negotiations
<B>Bahamian Resort Shines Positive Light On Negotiations</B>
By Chris Davis
As the complete opening of Our Lucaya, a major resort on Grand Bahama Island, nears, meeting and incentive buyers are looking forward to better negotiations throughout the Bahamas and a new location, nearby the mainland, for their events.
Our Lucaya, until recently dubbed The Lucayan, has been partially open since April 1999 but plans to debut its 40,000 square feet of meeting space this month. The resort enters a Bahamian marketplace dotted with major meeting and incentive properties, including Atlantis and the Radisson Cable Beach Resort, but is banking on the relatively sparse tenor of its location, which is lacking much of the development of Nassau.
Our Lucaya also is touting its proximity to the Florida coast, allowing for quick trips to and from its major airports.
"Airlift is always an issue for island resorts, but that service has been ratcheted up," said Gary Pugatch, vice president of sales and marketing at Our Lucaya. "There are more ways to get here through Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. AirTran is adding a flight out of Atlanta and TWA plans to add a flight next year out of Newark or JFK airport. So the volume of quick flights, especially out of the South Florida market, where the flight is just 30 minutes, will help." The lack of exhaustive travel time will lure corporate incentive groups from a wide area east of the Mississippi River, Pugatch said.
"Direct service is preferable, but Miami and Ft. Lauderdale are readily accessible," Pugatch said. "As such, we see the resort as a popular choice for meetings and incentives from corporate offices based in the Southeast and Northeast, and we think we can extend that to the Midwest. The quick travel time in the Southeast is very attractive, even for one-day meetings."
Despite its proximity to the coast, and the possibility for resulting corporate meeting bookings, Pugatch still sees group incentives as Our Lucaya's major corporate group market. "Considering the amenities, we should be very popular with that market," Pugatch said. "We booked 10,000 room nights for corporate incentives even before the meeting space was open."
Some corporations that have held group incentive events with no business element already have stayed at the property, as no function space was necessary. "Our group wanted to go to the Bahamas, and they were initially thinking about Atlantis," said Diane Rebello, account executive for Tampa, Fla.-based incentive management firm Crown Marketing Group, which booked a corporate incentive group at Our Lucaya in May. "But I swayed them, because I think Freeport is nicer than Nassau. It's quieter, without overcommercialization. It's a beautiful resort, with shopping and nightlife right across the street."
Rebello had a positive negotiating experience with the resort: "There will be more difficult negotiating times throughout the Bahamas when these resorts get more popular, but I think the people who were there in the beginning will have a better ratio in negotiations than newcomers."
While other Bahamian islands are more developed than Grand Bahama Island, which Pugatch sees as a plus for Our Lucaya, there are large, established resorts in the area that draw a high volume of corporate group business, particularly the Radisson Cable Beach Resort and Atlantis, which Pugatch counts as his resort's main competition for such revenue.
"They are great meeting resorts, and they've made great names for themselves," Pugatch said. "But given that this is a $400 million resort, our price points are nowhere near where they could be. We have policies and procedures for negotiating, but we want the ability to say 'yes' to planners when there are many, many places that will say 'no.' We want corporations to feel they received more than they expected for their money."
Our Lucaya's competition recognized the buyer-friendly effect new supply could have on negotiations, but stressed that more options sometimes means more business for everybody. "I suspect there will be an effect on negotiations, but the overall effect on the Radisson Cable Beach is positive because it continues to support the fact that this is a viable incentive venue," said Brian Meister, vice president of sales and marketing at the Radisson Cable Beach Resort. "There's more interest in the destination as a whole, and that gives Radisson a better shot at more business."
While the Radisson's corporate business is lead by incentives, meeting business gradually has increased over the past few years, Meister said, which he attributed to extensive upgrades throughout the resort and the choice of pricing plans it offers.
"We've upgraded meeting space to make this a much more viable resort and to aggressively court planners and meeting business," Meister said. "We also offer an all-inclusive pricing plan, which many planners like because it's the perfect budget solution. The outlook is rosy for at least the next three to five years, because the word is out on the Radisson and the Bahamas as a whole.