Of at least eight new resorts publicly announced for Bermuda, not one has the financing in place to actually break ground soon.

And The Royal Gazette has learned none of the luxury hotel brands boasted by developers, except Park Hyatt, has signed an agreement to manage a Bermuda resort.

As the Caribbean continues to gain new resorts, Bermuda appears to be losing them at a troubling pace.

Waterloo House and Ariel Sands have closed, Coral Beach Club and Horizons close down in November, Southampton Princess has closed half its rooms until April, and it's been three years since the old Wyndham/Sonesta shut its doors.

Bermuda's hoteliers say they are seriously concerned about the Island's future as a tourist destination without the building of at least one or two major new resorts.

"Bermuda has come off the radar," said Mike Winfield, president of Cambridge Beaches, whose summer bookings are down 30 percent. "Right now I'd say we're on the cusp of sustainability."

Industry sources say much-touted plans for a Jumeirah resort and Morgan's Point land swap deal have "gone cold" as developers Southlands Ltd. struggle to secure financing for the multi-million dollar project.

Sources also say developer Carl Bazarian still has no debt equity financing for a hotel at the old Club Med, closed more than 20 years now he has insisted the project will go ahead.

A Jumeirah spokeswoman said the ultra-luxury Dubai-based chain has signed an agreement to manage a new hotel in the US Virgin Islands, but not in Bermuda.

But she added: "Jumeirah was appointed in 2007 to manage the first five-star resort to be built in Bermuda in 35 years. Since then, the developers, along with the Government authorities, have been looking at a new opportunity on a different site. We continue to be committed to Jumeirah's resort in Bermuda."

A Corporation of Hamilton source tells us Ritz Carlton is no longer involved in plans for a new city condo-hotel on Par-la-Ville car park.

And an official with Four Seasons said: "There are no plans or any details that I can confirm at this point about (the Coral Beach Club project)."

However, Coral Beach Club owner George Wardman said: "Four Seasons is the only operator involved in the discussion."

As for financing, Rod O'Connor of Brickman, Mr. Wardman's partner, said the subject was premature at this stage: "We need to get through the Government Planning process first. We are spending a lot of time and money on reworking designs, but we are very excited about what want to transform Coral Beach into."

A further wrench in developers' plans, is the market for fractional condos, a key part of all the planned developments, is drying up.

While Tucker's Point and Newstead Belmont Hills have sold nearly all of their fractional units, The Reefs has sold only a third of its inventory.

Much fanfare has been made over the successful Tucker's Point and Newstead Belmont Hills condo-hotels, but they replaced existing hotels.

Mr. Winfield pointed out: "We have gone from 10,000 beds down to 6,000 and that makes it difficult to harness the resources necessary to market and sustain the tourism product. Right now we just are not reaching a wide enough group."

Mr. Winfield said Government's appointment of Ann Shutte as head of global sales for Bermuda tourism has been welcomed by the industry.

Bermuda Hotels Association (BHA) president John Harvey said he too hoped Bermuda would get a new resort soon, but he would "probably be more optimistic of that happening once the economic climate is ripe".

Coco Reef Resorts Ltd. owner John Jefferis revealed he plans to start building 66 leaseback villas this year.

He added: "Bermuda is overdue for new resort development. Our competition in the Caribbean, Dubai, Mauritius and the US has a history of adding new resorts."

Mr. Jefferis said the interest created by new properties will ensure demand for the increased room inventory. "New and expanded properties will produce significant amounts of image enhancing public relations for Bermuda," he said.

Premier and Tourism Minster Ewart Brown himself agreed.

"The need to increase our hotel room inventory and attract world renowned hotel brands, industry developers and investors to the Island is paramount in the survival of our tourism industry," Dr. Brown said in his address on Tourism during the House of Assembly Budget debate.

Tellingly, Dr. Brown appears now to be only talking up one of the planned developments— Bazarian's resort.

"We anticipate that Carl Bazarian will commence the Park Hyatt in the near future and we continue to be encouraged," the Premier said.

Bazarian International admitted last month it was still looking for financing for its planned Park Hyatt, but was confident of finding it.

Southlands Ltd. is also actively seeking financing for a resort at Morgan's Point.

"It's absolutely going ahead," Southlands official Craig Christensen told The Royal Gazette. "It's a significant development…probably about twice the size of the Southampton Princess, including a golf course, and a world-class marina."

When asked if at least a clean-up of Morgan's Point was being planned, a spokeswoman for Dr. Brown said: "We will update the press and the public on this project when developments have reached a more mature stage."

On the market for fractionals, an industry source told us: "All the surveys and consultants say that in a regular economy we haven't begun to tap into the potential market, but my honest opinion on that is that there is no way there is a market for it in Bermuda.

"There might be more of a market for fractionals going forward if the Government was to relax some of the immigration red tape and costs in the way."

Here is a closer look at some of the proposed new hotel or hotel redevelopment projects and where they're at:

Jumeirah Morgan's Point

It's been more than two years since a trio of local businessmen and the Jumeirah Group announced plans to build a modern 300-room resort and a number of fractional residences on the sprawling Southlands estate in Warwick. A tunnel under South Shore Road was part of the plans.

The chain behind Dubai's man-made Palm Island, had ambitious plans for Bermuda.

But one too many objections from increasingly environmentally-conscious locals was received. So Government caved in and proposed a land swap; A contract to transfer the Jumeirah resort from Southlands to the old US Navy base at Morgan's Point.

Government was to keep part of the 260-acre site for public housing; a golf course was planned; and the local developers Christensen/Duperreault & Hunt would receive a freehold, plus leased land, in exchange for 37-acre Southlands. The public would have to foot the bill for the estimated $25 million clean-up of pollution on the site. It appears no money has been set aside for the clean-up in the recent Budget.

A deal between Government, the developers and Jumeirah was expected to be signed "within the next few weeks". But that was a year ago.

And since then the economy has taken a turn for the worst. Even Jumeirah is feeling the squeeze as reports suggest Dubai may be seeing the bursting of its building and tourism bubble.

Coral Beach Club

The Coral Beach Club resort closes its exclusive doors this November for what could be as long as two or three years.

George Wardman, head of the company that owns Coral Beach, says the cottage colony will be "repositioned" into a new medium-sized hotel with 150 rooms plus numerous fractional residences on the Horizons and Coral Beach properties.

NY private equity firm Brickman is the Bermuda owners' development partner.

The project is awaiting the go-ahead from Planning, with 40-plus objections filed to the plans, which include a pedestrian tunnel near the entrance to Coral Beach, and reconfiguration of South Road to straighten a dangerous bend in the road.

Mr. Wardman told The Royal Gazette that: "Nothing has changed to the timetable we shared with the membership in the fall…that is limited facilities as of October 2009; reopening May 2012. There still seems to be healthy interest in fractionals and villas. I believe that quality projects will succeed."

Ariel Sands Redevelopment

The cottage colony hotel owned by the Dill family closed its doors in January last year indefinitely, laying off 32 staff.

The owners are trying to find an investor partner to demolish and redevelop the site into a condo-hotel with a possible fractional component.

A development deal with a Michigan-based private investor group fell through and discussions are now taking place between the Dill family and two or three possible investors.

Ariel Sands executive director John T. O' Brien told The Royal Gazette the Michigan investor group backed out of the deal because of the deteriorating financial climate.

"Right now we are talking to two or three other parties who have been interested all along. Now that the Michigan group is out, we can talk to them."

Mr. O'Brien described interest in Ariel Sands as "still very hot" due to its location and private beach mainly. Whether or not the redevelopment includes fractionals would be up to the investors. He said unfortunately the property will have to remain closed until a deal is finalised as it would be too costly to reopen now.

Condo/hotel on old Canadian Hotel Site

Stonehaven Development was granted a Special Development Order (SDO) early last year to build an 81-unit condo/hotel and spa at the site of the old Canadian on the corner of Court and Reid streets.

The project is on hold indefinitely until financing is secured.

Stonehaven partner Thomas Powell told The Royal Gazette this week: "We're still pursuing it but as everyone knows, the world is running out of cash."

He said Hamilton could definitely use another hotel: "There's a need for new upgraded hotels throughout the Island."

Bazarian/Park Hyatt at old Club Med

It's a site that's sat empty for more than 20 years, and seen at least two deals fall through, one of which a cultural and arts resort was dropped by the Government in favour of another that eventually fell through.

But now, a $294 million 100-room hotel, golf course, spa, 111 'visitor units', 30 timeshare units, four restaurants, a beach club, two swimming pools, tennis courts, and conference rooms are planned on the site of the now demolished Club Med by developers Bazarian International.

Financing is still not in place but the developers have expressed confidence it will be soon. A management agreement with the Park Hyatt hotel chain was signed in December, and the project is still scheduled for completion by 2012.

Tucker's Point

The 88-room hotel replacing the Marriott resort officially opens in April. Its restaurant, The Point, is already open.

Chief operating officer Eric Brookings told The Royal Gazette the first phase of its fractional residences is 100 percent sold, while the second phase of fractionals is 55 percent sold and interest has slowed.

"We developed and finished at the right time," he said. "We hope fractional sales will pick up again in 2010."

Mr. Brookings says group bookings at the new hotel are doing well, vacation bookings are slower

Par-la-Ville Hotel

A 150-room Ritz Carlton-managed condo-hotel and conference centre was planned for the site. An SDO was granted three years ago.

Sources close to the deal tell The Royal Gazette Ritz Carlton is no longer involved as the management brand. Neither developer partners Donal Smith nor the Corporation of Hamilton would comment on the status of the development.

Mr. Smith did say it was still planned and efforts to get it built are ongoing.

Southampton Beach Resort

A huge question marks hangs over plans for a new resort at the site of the old Sonesta/Wyndham hotel. Demolition has been carried out but the financing may be in jeopardy.

Lehman Brothers was supposed to finance building, but went bankrupt. The resort was expected to break ground this year and open in 2011.

An eco-friendly hotel, condos and villas was planned by Scout Real Estate Capital of New York.

A Scout official refused to even comment on the status of the development, other than to say, "We are proceeding, awaiting financing."

Grand Atlantic, Warwick

The proposed 220-room Grand Atlantic resort and residences is planned for the old Golden Hind site in Warwick, which has been a vacant eyesore for decades now.

On-Island representative Larry Swenson could not be reached for comment.

Architect Peter Terceira said: "We are still working on the project, but I do not have any further comment at this time."

Coco Reef's Coco Villas

Coco Reef Resorts Ltd. owner John Jefferis says he plans to break ground on the 66 new leaseback Coca Villas cottages in December.

The plans, for which an SDO was given, also include two swimming pools connected by a man-made river.

"We are currently in the process of finalising the more detailed design aspects of the project," Mr. Jefferis said.

He added: "Whilst currently the global tourism industry is certainly depressed as a result of over exuberance in the financial services industry, we are confident that we will see far more positive market conditions for our business in 2010."

Newstead Belmont Hills Golf Resort and Spa

The new suites hotel is open; the private residences and 78 condos at the Belmont golf course site have sold; plus the fractionals are as many as 85 percent sold.

"We are obviously very pleased with our sales today," Newstead Belmont sales manager Tim Petty said. "But we actually reached 85 percent before the economy took a turn for the worse. It is difficult to close on a sale right now because most of our clients are from the US and their lending institutions are not lending as much."

Mr. Petty added: "Our hotel concept is doing better than we had planned as far as occupancy, but we are not able to charge the rates we had planned to."

The Reefs Club

The extension of the Reefs resort includes 19 fractional residences due to open in July. Owner David Dodwell says they are about one third sold, but he is confident they will eventually sell as the economy improves.

He says one of his biggest selling points is that every bedroom has a balcony and an ocean view.

He added: "When we come out of this environment, fractionals may end up making a lot more sense financially as a second home option."

Lantana

Brothers Lawrence and James Doyle, both New York fund managers, plan to create a $145 million "ultra-luxury resort" on the site of the old Lantana cottage colony.

After "falling in love" with Bermuda on a birthday cruise with their mother, the Doyles bought out the previous owners of the 9.6-acre Somerset site, Lantana Resort Ltd. and Great Sound Realty Ltd. and now own the property outright.

They had expressed hope of breaking ground this year. But James Doyle says they are still working with Planning, and their architects in Bermuda.

"We are proceeding, we are positive about Bermuda and want to move the project forward," Mr. Doyle told The Royal Gazette from New York.

Fairmont Southampton Princess

A Special Development Order was granted this year for 130 fractional and residential villas, plus 22 townhouses at the Fairmont Southampton at Turtle Hill.

Hotel officials described the villas as "a critical component of Fairmont's restructuring and revitalisation".