By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A prominent Abaco resort has 34 job openings to fill in just five weeks, it was revealed yesterday, with one of its executives asserting that the island needs to “keep pace” with tourism’s “arms race”.

Bill Chrysler, vice-president, of operations for Southworth Developments, owner and operator of the Abaco Club, told the island’s Business Outlook conference that the private members’ club and other hospitality developments are faced with a “shortage of qualified workers” rather than a lack of skills.

Calling on the private sector and the Government to resolve what he described as “a resource issue”, he added that increasing wealth and spending power among high-end travellers means that The Bahamas and other tourism-dependent nations will soon have to compete by offering “six star” service and experience to their guests.

“I don’t see it slowing down in the near-term,” Mr Chrysler explained, “with that wealth continuing to transfer and people continuing to look for that experience.... which brings up the point of how we increase our A-plus service because people are getting exposed more and more to luxury high-end travel experiences.

“I heard ‘six star’ for the first time last year. Now, ‘five star’ is not even the goal. People are saying six-star service and, as you go and spend more money and get more services, it’s an arms race for these things, so how does Abaco keep up? I really think from the Abaco standpoint it boils down to resources, it boils down to transportation, it boils down to housing, it boils down to the workforce.

“I looked today and we have 34 job openings at the Abaco Club right now. Our [winter] season starts in five weeks. There’s a shortage of workers; I don’t think it’s a skills issue at all. The Bahamian people are so hospitable, so warm, so happy, it’s a wonderful place with service. We’ve never had these issues.’

Mr Chrysler, who said the Abaco Club was seeking “more variety” among the musicians who perform for its guests, added: “I would say the biggest way for us to get more involved, the better the experience gets outside our gates the more our members will venture outside the gates.

“We have regular trips they can take to Hope Town, to Firefly, to the blue holes but, honestly, we don’t get a whole lot of people saying take us to town or let’s drive up to Treasure Cay any more. Those are things we as a business community and government can look at improving.

Kerry Fountain, the Bahama Out Island Promotion Board’s executive director, told the conference that the first seven months of 2025 had been “tumultuous” a near-14 percent year-over-year increase in room revenues for its six Abaco member properties. Room nights sold were flat, although 4.36 percent ahead of 2019 and pre-Dorian figures for the January to July period.

He added that the Abaco hotels’ performance, with 15,327 room nights sold for the first seven month of 2025, “almost mirrors” or tracks the Nasdaq, Standard & Poor’s and Dow Jones stock market indices - an indication of the impact that the uncertainty unleashed by Donald Trump’s tariff policies has caused for US visitors.

Tracy Cooper, Bahamasair’s managing director, told the same panel discussion that Bahamasair’s air fare rates are “a stabilising force” in the market, and help to ensure this nation as a tourism destination remains affordable from an access perspective, as it prevents rival private sector carriers from “jacking up their prices”.

Rival carriers have accused Bahamasair in the past of only being able to undercut the market because of the typical annual $20m taxpayer subsidies it receives from the Government. However, Mr Fountain summed up: “You keep everyone honest.”

Mr Cooper also lamented the pilot, technician and dispatcher shortages that Bahamasair and all Bahamas-based carriers face. “We have difficulties, and what we do is that we tend to steal from each other,” he admitted. “If you talk to Western Air they’ll tell you Bahamasair is taking their pilots, those kinds of things.

“We don’t want to do that, but we need more entry level persons in the profession in the Bahamas. We don’t have enough entry-level persons for sustainability.”