Buccament Bay Resort staff receive high praise

This country’s most valuable natural resource has come in for high praise, as one of the key reasons for the success of the Buccament Bay Resort.{{more}}

At a presentation and media tour of the Buccament Bay Resort last Friday, Vice President of Harlequin Hotel & Resort Development Garrett Ronan indicated that local and foreign visitors to the resort have lauded staff for their warmth.

“One of the key elements we have here, and that with the natural assets of the beauty and the environment, that keeps coming back, is not only the beauty and the comfort of the bed, but it’s the staff experience,” Ronan said.

“The natural hospitality and the care that they have shown, that makes the difference and we want to bring that to our other projects and we get to showcase it with St Vincent.”

He said 340 persons are employed at the 154-unit resort, with more than 97 per cent of them being local and CARICOM nationals.

Ronan pointed to tripadvisor.com, a travel website that assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel-related content, and engaging in interactive travel forums.

When SEARCHLIGHT visited the site, as of noon on Wednesday, it featured 216 reviews of the resort, with an average four and a half out of five rating.

Some 142 of the reviews rated the resort as “excellent”, 42 said it is “very good”, 17 said it was “average”, five said “poor” and 10, “terrible”. Ronan said the positive reviews were not ballooned by the resort, but were given by genuine visitors.

The positive reviews show resort employees receiving high marks in most cases, with remarks such as “Not forgetting the wonderful service of the staff, that made it absolutely amazing”, “What sets this place apart from anywhere else I have been to in the Caribbean is the staff”, “Give the staff a gold medal,” and “All of the staff make your stay as good as it can possibly be.”

Some employees were identified by name, inlcuding, “Devon”, “Carlson”, “Roman”, “Amanda”, “Vibert”, “Rockley”, “Misha”, “Carlisle”, “Dexter” and “Arlene”.

Even negative reviews gave points to the workers; one such review read: “… The rest of the staff were always courteous and polite, but they were very limited in their capacity.”

The reviews also pointed out that some visitors, most of whom travelled from the United Kingdom, lamented the airlift from Barbados to St Vincent, mosquitoes and construction noise at the resort.

Ronan said the staff quality can only improve, with the continuing training.

He also told the media more than 1,500 Vincentians have visited the resort, taking advantage of the day passes and stay-cations.

“And that does not include persons who come for dinners, lunches, parties and special occasions … The feedback we’ve gotten from every Vincentian that has come here, and more and more who come here are like ‘Wow! We love it!’ And they keep coming back,” Ronan said.(JJ)