Carimar Beach Club at Meads Bay, Anguilla, has announced its grand opening for the 2017-2018 tourism season.
Although the condominium property sustained some damage from Hurricane I
rma, it was able to partly accommodate a few guests from other hotels, as well as a number of its own guests who ventured to come to Anguilla soon afterwards. Earlier visitors at Carimar included officials from the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, UNICEF, United Kingdom Government and agencies, and British marines who were among the first responders to Anguilla following the hurricane.
After having carried out some repair work, Carimar substantially opened for business on December 23 when a number of tourists were formally welcomed to the property – and Anguilla – by General Manager, Mr. Rolf Massahardt. The event was a reception at Carimar’s courtyard which was also attended by employees and a local musical band.
“We are having our grand opening,” he told The Anguillian. “It is not that grand in the number of people, but all our staff is here and the guests which have arrived. For us, it is the beginning of the season and we are leaving Hurricane Irma behind from now on. That’s the idea.”
He recalled that following the hurricane, Carimar’s employees began cleaning the property; the management undertook to order supplies to carry out repairs and contractors were sourced to do painting, restore rails and other work. “I haven’t had a day off since September 6 when Irma came but that’s ok. It was fun,” he chuckled.
Mr. Massahardt went on: “Right now we have 40 guests and on December 27 we will be full. We have 24 2-bedroom units so that’s 48 bedrooms. If there are two people in each bedroom we will have 96 people, but some of the rooms are actually only occupied by one couple. We rent them as one or two bedrooms so on average when we are full we have 60 or 70 guests.
“We will be full over the Christmas season. We will have some space in January but we have an idea which we launched a few days ago. It is that whoever stays at Carimar from now on until the end of January will get a one-week free vacation in 2019. That is something we are trying to have the rest of the space filled in January. From February, March and onwards we will be having a decent season. It will not be the best season ever, but we will be having a decent season and, hopefully, everybody in Anguilla will be getting a little share of it. These include restaurants, taxi-drivers, tour operators and others. I think that is important.”
Carimar is owned by 24 investors and is among a number of other luxury properties on the scenic and expansive Meads Bay beachfront.
