International business visitors already face challenges finding a hotel room in Bermuda in the months either side of summer — and the imminent closure of the main hotel building at the Elbow Beach resort will only add to their challenges.

That is the view of David Ezekiel, chairman of the Association of Bermuda International Companies (ABIC), who described the Island's hospitality industry infrastructure as "hugely important" to international business.

"It was not a good day - mostly for the Bermudians and expatriates who have lost their jobs - but for international business, this also represents some challenges for next spring and summer," Mr. Ezekiel said yesterday. "As we saw last year, getting a room in May or June was a real challenge.

"Businesses rarely have the luxury of being able to make bookings well in advance. They can do that for board meetings, but brokers and investment people are often called upon to visit a client at short notice and that's where the difficulty surfaces.

"It's not good news to see that number of beds at Elbow Beach come off the market, when the market is already shrinking."

Mr. Ezekiel said international business and tourism had coexisted well, with airlift capacity and hotel space of fundamental importance to both.

"We've always said that one of the major attractions of Bermuda for business is that it's a wonderful place to live and to visit," he said. "For that, one has to have capacity and price competition. Any hotel closure will play against both of those."

He hoped that the lack of beds would turn out to be a "temporary vacuum", perhaps filled by the reopening of Elbow Beach, or by a competitor seeing an opportunity.

Mr. Ezekiel added that he had noticed a significant drop in business travel to the Island during the economic downturn, as many corporations clamped down on any trips deemed non-essential and business that had previously been done by a visiting team was often now being done by an individual.