This year’s winter season has been deemed one of the best ever by Barbadian realtors, some of whom have even recorded full bookings for the period.
With a minimum stay of at least a week or two, guests are paying from as low as US$10 000 a week for a three-bedroom fully staffed house on the beach, to as much as US$10 000 a night.
It was also reported that quite a few billionaires and stars are in the island on holiday or just to “ring out the old and ring in the new” in this small paradise.Paul Altman, managing director of Altman Real Estate, noted his company was extremely happy with the bookings this year.
“We have some wonderful people in the island and we are hoping that the weather stays good. This time of the year Barbados is really kickng, and that’s why people have been choosing to come here during this season,” he said.
Dereck Foster, managing director of Bajan Services, said his business had so many bookings that some had been passed on to competitors.
“This Christmas is perhaps the best we have ever had! Every single villa is booked and we even helped to book some of our competitors’ villas because we had none left. This Christmas season is looking very good and the forward bookings are looking very strong, so we are feeling quite confident that we will have a good overall season,” he stated.
Managing director of Realtors Limited, Nick Parravicino, said his company, too, was recording a good Christmas season and bookings were improving daily.“The villas are doing very well but we have had some delays with the snowstorms, so we still have some vacancies. I still have one or two houses but the rentals were superb,” he added.
Parravicino said, judging from the popular restaurants and the full bookings, it was a good sign that the entire island was doing fairly well.
President of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Authority (BHTA), Colin Jordan, said he wasn’t at all surprised by the bookings.He said while it might be economical for large families, the BHTA had noticed the shift from luxury hotels to the more high-end villa segment of the market.“We are not sure what it means as yet, but we have been seeing the shift . . . . We don’t know if it has to do with more privacy or more personalized services, where the staff at the villa are (their) staff, but the bookings do not surprise me at all,” he said.
Full story in the MIDWEEK NATION.
