Some staff at the Wyndham Hotel claim the first they knew about the intended closure of the hotel was when they read about it in yesterday?s .

In the wake of news that the new management company Cendant Corporation intends to shut the South Shore hotel from this weekend and to reopen on April 1, possibly following refurbishment and rebranding, a number of staff have spoken out about the lack of warning they were given.

One full-time housekeeper, who has been employed at the hotel for more than a decade, said she only heard the news from reading the yesterday?s newspaper having been off work for two weeks.

?I find it very disheartening. They have known what they were planning and waited until after Christmas when people have been out and spent money and now they are going to face real hardship,? she said, asking not to be named.

Another long-time worker said she has not been given any official word of the closure from managers or supervisors. She added: ?I?m lucky because I?ve got something to fall back on but there are people out there with families and children and do not know where to go. And what is going to happen with vacation time that people have accrued??

Hotel owner Clifford Schorer said the hotel management had only revealed the news of the intended closure on Tuesday.

He said: ?We told all the supervisors and they told the staff, although I?m aware there are employees on vacation. We sympathise with the staff?s situation, but we are all in the same boat. I?m not the manager of the hotel and did not know the decision was coming.?

Mr. Schorer said he believed anyone with vacation time owed would be able to carry it forward to the April reopening.

Derrick Burgess, president of the Bermuda Industrial Union, last night told that the union would be holding a meeting at the hotel next Tuesday with its hotel employee members and officials from the Department of Labour. He added that the union had also held urgent meetings yesterday with management and Ministers.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, hotel general manager Mike Collard said staff would be returning in March to train for a ?new and exciting operation?. was unsuccessful it its attempts to contact Mr. Collard yesterday