A full economic recovery plan must include the reopening of the Fairmont Southampton, the leader of the island’s largest trade union said.

Chris Furbert, the Bermuda Industrial Union president, speaking two years after the hotel closed for renovations, added that spring 2024 would be “an excellent time frame” for the iconic property to return to business.

He said this week: “When we’re talking about economic recovery, there is no economic recovery without that hotel reopening.”

Mr Furbert added: “When we talk about an economic recovery and getting back to numbers of 2019, remember now, 2019 the hotel was open and it was doing real well.”

He said: “How are you going to put those numbers back together without that hotel reopening?

“A full economic recovery plan has to include the largest hotel on the island reopening.

“That accounts for 20 to 25 per cent of the beds, it accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of the airlift into Bermuda. When you look at taxi business, when you look at all the other auxiliary services that support the hotel, it’s over $100 million a year that’s being lost out of the economy through the hotel being closed.”

Mr Furbert added: “If they can get shovels in the ground in December or January of 2023, certainly they can make the spring of 2024, whether that’s March, April or middle of May.

“I think that would be an excellent time frame to reopen because it’s right at the beginning of the season.”

Mr Furbert said that about 30 to 40 BIU members still worked at the resort, where the Boundary Sports Bar and Grille as well as the Turtle Hill Golf Club remained open.

He added that wages agreed under a new collective bargaining agreement for Fairmont Southampton employees were “fairly good”.

Gencom said in December 2019 — after it acquired the resort through its purchase of Westend Properties — that the 593-room hotel would undergo significant renovations.

It emerged nine months later that the Covid-19 pandemic brought forward a planned closure for the work to October 23, 2020 — two years ago tomorrow.

At the time, it was thought the property could return to full operations in April 2022.

More than 700 people were made redundant and it was feared that the job losses would result in “significant hardship for many”.

Jason Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, said then that his team would work with the BIU and its hotel division to make sure severance packages were fairly calculated.

In November 2020, Curtis Dickinson, then the finance minister, said the Government would step in to cover redundancy payments for Fairmont Southampton staff after an October 23 deadline for the hotel’s owners to pay out came and went.

He announced in February 2021 that Gencom had "repaid the full amount that the Government loaned to the former employees, approximately $11 million“.

In an effort to win over Progressive Labour Party delegates before a leadership vote this week, Mr Dickinson claimed "those who ignore that our tourism workers were disrespected and deprived as they were refused redundancy payments cannot be trusted to have our best interests at heart“.

He also spoke about a “lack of transparency” around the Government’s deal with Gencom as well as an “urgency to get it signed, regardless of the consequences”.

Karim Alibhai, the founder and principal of Gencom, said in April that severance packages were always factored into budgets for the redevelopment project.

He said: “Now, the way the capital’s going to come in, is when we shut the project down for construction, 90 days thereafter is when the redundancy payments were going to be due.

“We were not going to shut the hotel down until April or May of 2021.

“The pandemic — suddenly the airport shut down, everything shut down, so the hotel had to shut down.

“All of a sudden, it technically triggered the redundancy payments sooner than the date that we needed.”

Mr Alibhai said that he believed the Government “did the right thing” to lend the funds to former workers.

Legislation that carved out between $121 million and $133 of tax concessions over 15 years to the hotel developers was among Mr Dickinson’s reasons for resigning as the Minister of Finance.

The Fairmont Southampton Hotel Act 2022 was designed to deliver customs duty relief as well as exemptions from hotel occupancy tax, land tax and the employer’s share of payroll tax.

Mr Dickinson said in May, when the Bill was passed in the House of Assembly, that the legislation was too generous.

MPs heard then that the Government will give the project a guarantee of up to $75 million, which would represent 21 per cent of the revised costs of $376 million.

Mr Burt referenced a deal with Gencom at the PLP’s annual delegates conference this week.

He said: “The heads of terms has been signed. The deal is progressing to closing.

“There’s a whole lot of teams of lawyers working through that closing process, and I have complete confidence that that deal will close because we must deliver those jobs and the return of tourism to this country.”

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2022 Employment Briefs

The Government’s 2022 Employment Briefs showed that filled jobs in the accommodations and food service activities sector fell by 515, or 14.3 per cent, to 3,076 from 2020 to 2021.

It reported: "This was due primarily to the reduced operations of the Fairmont Southampton.“

The Government introduced measures to try to help people made redundant from the hotel as well as others affected by unemployment after the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Mr Hayward said in October 2020 that his ministry met people in the hospitality industry and “occupational cross-referencing” was under way, while career fairs were scheduled.

Training programmes were offered by the Department of Workforce Development to help displaced workers, including a scheme for food and beverage servers.

The list of closed category jobs under the work permit policy was expanded.

A supplementary unemployment benefit was introduced in September 2020 with payments totalling more than $2.8 million made up to the end of August this year and the scheme now extended to November 30, 2022.

Stephen Todd, the chief executive officer of the Bermuda Hotel Association, this week highlighted how the reopening of the Fairmont Southampton will impact the island.

He said: “Beyond the renovation phase which will stimulate employment opportunities in the construction industry, the eventual reopening of the hotel will significantly increase our overall destination hotel room inventory, provide much needed employment for Bermudians as well as the ability for those seeking a career in the hotel industry to pursue their personal goals.

“Similarly, the increase in hotel rooms will permit the Bermuda Airport Authority, Bermuda Skyport Corporation, the Bermuda Tourism Authority in conjunction with the Bermuda Government, to work collectively and proactively with our airline partners to achieve the objective of effecting an increase in the overall airlift and target gateway cities that currently service the island.

“A key market sector, specifically group business, will once again be afforded the ability to host their large-scale events at the hotel, as this was a key area that our destination has been somewhat restricted in being able to accommodate due to the ongoing closure of the hotel.”

He added: “Given the competitive nature of the hotel industry, it is anticipated that once the hotel has reopened, our member properties will seek to ensure that they are positioned to attract guests who are seeking a destination experience and service standards that Bermuda has been renowned for in terms of our well-earned reputation.

“The BHA looks forward to the future announcement of the commencement date for the renovations to begin, as all industries work towards achieving positive economic growth and employment opportunities for all residents.”

Simon Boden, the Fairmont Southampton area director for sales and marketing, said in August that significant progress was made on pre-construction work at the hotel and it was hoped the substantive renovations would begin by the end of the year.

Gencom declined to comment for this article as the closing process on its deal with the Government continued.