Marriott adds SEVEN hotels in Barbados as it buys Elegant Hotels for £100m

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• pauldb says:

  19 Oct19 October 06:34

  If you look at the EHG share price it was one of the most direct losers from the Brexit referendum: essentially their costs are in USD and their customers/revpar is in GBP.

  Their answer was to try and market Barbados to US customers but they had limited success. Marriott are clearly better placed to do that. Losing a management contract recently and then Thomas Cook may have been the last straws for its independence.

  • Rob says:

    19 Oct19 October 10:28

    What is interesting is that, as you know, Barbados is VERY UK focused. The only flights from Europe are BA and VS (Eurowings did a trial this year from Germany, let’s see if it sticks). It is quite a big bet, unless Marriott thinks it can attract more US guests.

    • Thomas says:

      19 Oct19 October 12:25

      Agreed..
      Been going since ‘83 and it’s really not a big US destination. The flight schedules for the US market do not help either.
      Lots of Canadians though.
      Will be interesting to see what they do with Treasure Beach, House and Daphnes. The others are not relevant.

• Roberto says:

  19 Oct19 October 07:11

  Like Rob I was shocked at how low the sale figure was when looking at land costs in Barbados. Its one of the few places we return to anually and I am always amazed at price of beachfront properties on the west coast.

  I know most of these resorts and thier footprints are huge, I suspect the future development potential on just one or two will go a long way to paying for the remainder.

• TGLoyalty says:

  19 Oct19 October 07:15

  Marriot also recently bought the W Union Square in NYC to refurb and show off their Vision of W in the future.

  I know they have bought, transformed and sold Edition properties before but they seem to be taking more of an SPG direction to adding properties to their group. Maybe influence from a few post merger staff?

  • Rob says:

    19 Oct19 October 10:26

    I was more surprised by W NYC. That is not really strategic, in my view, and it is far more money than they are spending here.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      19 Oct19 October 10:54

      Headline purchase price vs total cost of refurbishment. From comments these properties might take a lot of investment to bring them up to a high standard.

      Perhaps these Barbados properties have restrictions on what they can be used for and therefore $m villas aren’t an option?

      • Rob says:

        19 Oct19 October 11:16

        Almost certainly. Economically, villas are a bad deal for the country – they may sit empty much of the time and the residents will spend less (on average per day) than a tourist.

• Peter K says:

  19 Oct19 October 08:54

  I stayed at Turtle Beach (on the South coast) a couple of years ago and was not overwhelmed.
  Having said that under new management things may improve significantly.

• Zoe says:

  19 Oct19 October 09:41

  My husband would be happy to go to Barbados for every long haul holiday we do. I keep reminding him that it will still be a good option when we are 80 so for now lets try some other places. So we are off to Cambodia at the end of November using a 241 to KUL.

  • Polly says:

    19 Oct19 October 23:23

    We are there nov, 9 th to 19th, then Penang…

• Unsavage gerbil says:

  19 Oct19 October 11:53

  You are assuming you get to 80

  • Crafty says:

    25 Oct25 October 22:27

    And that air travel will still be possible.

• Graham Walsh says:

  19 Oct19 October 13:09

  Currently at the Treasure Beach Hotel, 35 or so rooms, adults only. Lovely place, staff know you by name, on a B&B rate and booked via Virgin Holidays. Flights were Lloyds Amex vouchers, I wouldn’t want AI, we did consider, but there are hundreds of restaurants to visit. I did hear Elegant only purchased this hotel a few years ago, was previously family owned. Right next door to the Tamarind. Would certainly come back here, although not on an AI rate, so much nicer to explore.

  • Steve-B says:

    19 Oct19 October 19:12

    Interesting, we went there a opulent of years ago and really didn’t rate it – lacked atmosphere and needed refurbishment in places. Also breakfast was particularly poor. Maybe things have improved!

• Lady London says:

  19 Oct19 October 14:06

  Why do people go to Barbados? And if someone would choose to have their holidays in Barbados, what other places around the world would they also be considering ?

  • Rob says:

    19 Oct19 October 14:26

    It’s your relatively standard Caribbean Island, but one where everyone is English speaking, the crime rate is relatively low, the position of the West Coast creates very calm water, things ‘work’ (water, electricity, healthcare), there are disproportionately good hotels compared to many Caribbean places and there are no hurricanes (I think it is 50 years since it got hit).

    And you can fly there directly from the UK, which is a problem for some of the other niche islands like Curacao etc.

    If you have no interest on going to a resort where more than 50% of the guests are British, however, then give it a miss. But that’s how the Caribbean works – the Bahamas will be 50%+ American, Dutch Antilles / St Martin will be 50%+ Dutch etc. Those old colonial ties still hold.

    • Lady London says:

      19 Oct19 October 15:20

      Sounds like good reasons for picking it. Especially with children, due to relatively secure environment.

      Thanks, Rob.

  • Graham Walsh says:

    19 Oct19 October 14:31

    Reason for picking here (compared to Dubai this time last year) is that I’d never been to any of the Caribbean and Barbados seems to have the most to do. Safe and easy to get around. Other considerations for next years holiday this time of year would be Mauritius maybe. Like to experience difference places. Also need to do a safari at some point too.

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