Despite low occupancy, Grand Palladium keeps doors open

Western Bureau:

Despite having less than 10 per cent occupancy and cognisant of the increasing calls for the borders to be closed to American tourists as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge in that country, the Grand Palladium Hotel in Lucea, Hanover, says it is committed to staying open and keeping its staff employed.

In an interview with The Gleaner earlier this week, Enrico Pizzoli, the general manager at Grand Palladium, said the hotel, which was closed because of the COVID-19 restrictions, has reopened since Friday, July 10. He said that at present, only 100 of the hotel’s 1,000 rooms are occupied.

“We now have just 10 per cent occupancy, but we were forecasting a little more for July,” said Pizzoli. “We are still happy with what we are getting right now. We (hope we) will see better numbers in August, so we are forecasting between 25 and 30 per cent in August, and, hopefully, we will keep going up,” said Pizzoli.

The hotelier has expressed confidence that as soon as the situation surrounding the spread of the pandemic improves in the United States and Canada, the hotel occupancy numbers will start to increase in a substantial way.

The general manager said he was pleased that Jamaicans are making use of the opportunity to support the tourism sector by vacationing in the local hotels, noting that his hotel now has a number of Jamaican guests. The hotel is health certified by both the Ministry of Health & Wellness and the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo).

“We have a good number of national guests (Jamaicans) here coming from Kingston, Montego Bay, Westmoreland, and here in Hanover, so we hope that the numbers will continue to grow now that people are getting confident in Jamaica in facing the COVID situation in a very professional way,” said Pizzoli.

He said that the hotel is making every effort to keep its staff employed. “I was pushing very much my corporate people in Spain to be one of the first hotels to reopen even though we know that we depend a lot on the international market,” said Pizzoli.

“With the small number of guests that we have here, we have retained 600 of our team members, which is a great effort,” Pizzoli revealed.