SANDALS estimates Hurricane Ivan will cost it £3
million in replacement holidays as the trade begins to calculate
the mounting costs of the storm that devastated the Caribbean last
week.
The hurricane left a path of destruction affecting resorts in
Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Florida, Grenada, Jamaica and Mexico.
Tour operators have borne the substantial cost of repatriating
passengers.
Sandals’ Blue Chip Guarantee means if a customer’s
holiday is hit at any time by a hurricane – even on the last
day – the operator will provide another complete holiday free
of charge.
UK managing director Bobby Stewart said: “With a storm of this
magnitude we wanted to offer a way for agents to make customers
happy.”
Sandals, which has 14 resorts in Jamaica, is evaluating repair
costs to its properties but started reopening resorts
yesterday.
The Federation of Tour Operators estimates around 10,000 UK
holidaymakers have been caught up in the storms.
Virgin Holidays, which had 800 customers in the region, expects
its costs to reach “hundreds of thousands of pounds”, mostly from
chartering aircraft to transfer passengers to other resorts or back
to the UK.
Virgin, along with Kuoni, Thomson and Thomas Cook, began to
reopen its resorts in the Caribbean this week, but all have delayed
taking customers back to Grenada, which was devastated by the
storm.
Thomas Cook has closed its Grenada resorts until September 24,
while Kuoni and Thomson are delaying travel to the island until
October 31.
Virgin Holidays, which has sent staff to evaluate the damage at
its resorts, will not restart bookings to the island until December
31.
An ABTA spokeswoman said: “It will take a while before Grenada
is up and running.”
The Caribbean Tourism Organisation has launched an appeal to
international organisations for aid to rebuild the destination and
has called on the travel industry to help.