By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

ATLANTIS will temporarily furlough some employees as COVID-19 cases continue to grow in North America and cancellations increase following US President Joe Biden’s announcement of a new quarantine requirement for travellers entering the United States.

In a letter to staff, the resort said it will scale operations, noting that beginning February 4 guest reservations at The Royal will move to The Cove “and some colleagues will be placed on temporary furlough”.

“Our plan and hope are to invite team members back by the spring break season, pending occupancy,” Atlantis President Audrey Oswell said in a letter to staff.

“As the new year progresses, the overall business outlook for Atlantis is hopeful. However, for the immediate future, we face similar challenges as we have in the last months.”

“The pandemic continues to spike in many of our key markets, new and increased travel restrictions and requirements are in effect, and limited airlift present roadblocks for travel.”

This is now the second time in a month Atlantis has announced plans to furlough some staff, dimming hopes for the Bahamian economy after the resort initially welcomed 2,500 employees back in December.

Atlantis representatives declined to discuss the furlough yesterday. It is not clear how many people will be affected by its action.

However, Darrin Woods, president of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU), said Atlantis told union representatives it “got a lot of cancellations” after President Biden’s quarantine announcement last week.

“They said they had a huge fall off,” he said. “They called us and we asked them to send us information by areas in the hotel so we know which will be open and which will be closed. That will help us know how many will be affected.”

Mr Woods suggested the union is powerless to intervene on behalf of its members.

“If we push back they will still do what they got to do,” he said. “Whenever we think the industry is going in the right direction, something always comes up.

“The restrictions the US president announced probably should’ve been done a long time ago so we wouldn’t be at this point at this time, but the president has to do what he does to manage the crisis. We hope the US views us in a different light from countries where there are a lot of cases.”

Last Thursday, President Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to require international air travellers to quarantine upon arrival in the US.

Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar reiterated his views yesterday about the harmful consequence of the US quarantine rule, the parameters of which have not yet been revealed.

“The possibility of introducing quarantining when Americans return home, that has had the effect of creating a lot of uncertainty in the market,” he told reporters outside the House of Assembly.

“While it’s debatable whether quarantine is enforceable, I think at the end of the day most Americans want to abide by the dictates of their government. If their government suggests it, then that’s probably what they want to do. So it is very concerning and we’re going to push as hard as we can, see what we can do to mitigate that, but it is in the minds of the traveler, creating a concern.

“The silver lining in all of this obviously is the US government will get COVID under control, President Biden is pushing very hard and he’s very focused on trying to solve this problem, getting the cases down and hopefully this gets solved quicker than we anticipated.”

In an executive order signed last week, President Biden tasked several federal agencies with promptly submitting a plan to codify his quarantine policy. Before his inauguration, American officials announced that beginning today, all travellers into the US must have a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of travel.

The United States surpassed 25 million confirmed COVID-19 cases this week.