 Hi everyone. I'm Jackie Gifford and I am the editor-in-chief of Travel and Leisure. Thank you for joining me today. We're going to be talking about how three different destinations are coping during the COVID-19 pandemic. Joining me are three key stakeholders. We have Graham Davis, the president of Baja Mar, Kenroy Herbert, the chairman of the Anguilla Tourist Board, and Helen Hill, the CEO of Explore Charleston. We have Graham Davis, the president of Baja Mar. Graham, how are you? We're excellent, Jackie. Thank you very much for the invitation. Can you just set the scene for us? How is Baja Mar coping right now? How are you doing? How is your team doing? Well, this has been an unprecedented time for us here in the Bahamas. We closed our doors March 25th of 2020 and we knew we had to make significant changes to how we were operating and how we were taking care of our associates and being ready to reopen again as we've done on December 17th. It's very important that we take care of our associates first. Since the time that we have closed, we've been paying our associates to stay home, be safe for nine months. We've spent over 70 million dollars in X-Grosha payments and medical benefits and paying our associates that we're working to stay on throughout these times. We've been working closely with the government of the Bahamas who have done an exceptional job at keeping the country safe. 350,000 people in the Bahamas throughout the archipelago with lockdowns, with important testing to ensure that we create a safest environment. We're very pleased that we were able to reopen our doors but we knew that we had to change the landscape on how we do business each and every day as we reopen on December 17th along with the health visa program that the Bahamian government has put into place for guests to test five days prior to arrival with the health visa and which includes insurance in case something should happen to Medevac, our guests out. We also put in additional protocols to test our guests upon arrival at the resort which is really unprecedented for most resorts or businesses around the globe. We're testing every guest we've done over now 20,000 tests since we've opened December 17th and I can tell you that we've had a positivity rate of 0.001 or 1 tenth of 1 percent so it's been very successful. We've been testing our associates on a weekly basis as well and we are the first resort, one of the first probably hotels in the world that is offering rapid antigen tests or PCR tests to actually go back home so we're creating an environment that is as seamless and as easy as possible for our guests to enjoy an exceptional experience at Bahamar. I think what you've done has really been ahead of the curve when it comes to testing so everyone's been reacting to the news that now going forward Americans or anybody entering the United States from international flight has to test before going back and I think you are going to be in a key in a good position to be able to provide that service to your guests so I guess to your point not every resort was doing this you're now you were doing it already. The one thing too I want to point out to viewers is you actually are also doing a phased opening so talk to me a little bit about that. Well we wanted to ensure that we open safely and successfully as well so it was important to build that consumer confidence as quickly as we could and that was to open our grand hyatt first we did that when we opened the project to begin with we opened in a phased manner to ensure that we had all of our protocols in place that were worked out thoroughly ahead of time and to execute on it flawlessly which we've done and so we felt that once we're comfortable that the grand hyatt can open with our casino all of our shops and many of our restaurants and all of our other amenities that we could successfully ensure that the protocols were being maintained flawlessly that our sanitization program was in place that the service levels were exceptional in every way we then can start looking at opening up our other properties and we're expecting to open those in March in less than 50 we're now 51 days away from from opening up we hope the SLS and our Rosewood Bahamar as well so this is the thoughtful and certainly the safest way to open successfully you mentioned to the idea of being outdoors and that's one advantage that the Bahamas has is so much of the culture there and the lifestyles outdoors are you creating new outdoor experiences for guests in light of the the pandemic well we certainly are offering our experiences whether it be our excursions out on boats to the nearby islands obviously they're small and and luxury and and intimate in those ways that it's safe we're offering some great experiences of course for al fresco dining we have more patio space out there our pool areas we have seven pools for hide alone and so that we've created some great physical distancing around the pool areas we have touchless many touchless technology available we don't have room keys here at the property we we were ahead of the curve in that as well that we have wristbands that every guest has that has an RFID chip embedded and in those rubberized wristbands that they can wear in the pool the beach that opens your room key your room door touchless and you can also charge you don't have to sign checks you don't have to touch any pens or or anything it's just a touch of the wrist to a tablet and you're paying for all your your food and beverage and experiences as well qr codes are are easily accessible at all of our outlets we have qr codes we for our app that you can download and have everything available booking excursions and golf can all be done right from your own phone so a touchless technology has been in the forefront of our minds since prior to covet and we're continuing to evolve through covet as well thank you thank you grand davis president bahama are for joining me today i'm jackie gifford editor-in-chief of travel leisure and we're continuing on with the evolution of travel how destinations are adapting to a new era with me now is kenray herbert the chairman of the anguilla tourist board hi kenray how are you hi jackie i'm doing well how are you doing well i'm doing i'm doing pretty great i have to say so uh full disclosure i am in anguilla i'm i am here and we're staying socially distanced it's been fascinating to be on the ground in a new destination and i want to talk to you about some of the protocols that you've put in place here so why did it open a little bit later than other caribbean destinations well you know we wanted to get it right we also wanted to ensure that once we open it was sustainable you know unlike some of our other neighbors who reopened and then closed you know that created uncertainty and frustration for both travel advisors and clients so we learned from the experiences and we came up with our own template for reopening so after two weeks in in in quarantine our staying place vacation as we say if they're still test negative they can enjoy our island as we do enjoying the freedom afforded by our local with numbers kenray tell me how you you and the government came up with the testing system you did so to be clear to everyone visitors have to take an rt pcr test and that's by the way includes children not all destinations are doing that three to five days before they come in and then on arrival wait in your facility in your hotel your villa wherever it is until you get cleared and get those negative results so tell me a little bit about that because it is one of the more robust testing systems out there yes so our health professionals led by our cmo the chief medical officer you know the confidant with regional kapa paho and international wh o and public health uk agencies and determined the best practices and most effective protocols for anguilla so studies reveal that the tree testing protocols sequential testing had a predictive value rate of 97 percent and identifying the virus and persons so this is what we adopted so visitors are required to submit a negative pcr test three to five days prior to arrival upon arrival they are required to take another pcr test and on day 10 or day 14 um of their stay in place they're required to take another test before um accident the quarantine period and once that is negative they can enjoy our lead anguilla has to offer what prompted you as well to create the bubble concept of approved vendors and what walk people through that and also how these vendors were chosen so that you know it's clear i want to make clear to people the word quarantine gets thrown out a lot right now which i think uses guests and people who are about to travel because they think that they actually cannot leave their hotel room and that is not the case here so your stay in place concept yes you stay you stay in place but it's actually a whole system of approved vendors so you're not literally staying in one place so the tourism bubble concept was designed to allow visitors particularly those who are spending less than 14 days on island to experience our tourism product in a safe manner that protects both themselves and our local residents so in collaboration with our stakeholders we put in place a system of guided movements that allows properties to safely offer the assured time stay guests access to a variety of approved amenities services and activities while they stay in place the properties would submit the proposed activities and respective protocols which were then inspected and approved by our health officials so also advanced reservations are required for all activities with transportation provided by certified ground transportation operators so this means that visitors to anguilla can indulge in their favorite you know past times anguilla has been through a lot i was here just after hurricane irma when the island basically had to rebuild there were a lot of closures and and you know the island has been through events like this before but but in on another level there's COVID so tell me how does a destination just rebuild how does it do do situations from the past give you experience for the future and dealing with the pandemic so we shifted from a tourism economy to a construction economy after hurricane irma but this is not the case with with this pandemic when we close our borders in march you know there was no one here i think this was probably the first time in our history where we had zero arrivals to anguilla and also for an extended period i think it was uh what about nine to ten months and i must say our government extended the necessary social safety net in terms of unemployment assistance as the tourism sector is by far our largest source of employment here on anguilla one of the ways you've gotten creative too is by coming up with a long-term residency program could you could you explain a little bit about that i know other destinations have done something similar where you know basically remote work visas this is a big trend that we're seeing in the industry so the remote the the working from anguilla situation working remotely from anguilla has has has had a tremendous response anguilla represents an extremely attractive option for those who are already working remotely and likely continue to continue to do so for foreseeable future our local with status excellent communication services and exceptional quality of life all huge incentives that are attracting professionals seeking a less stressful environment and the change of scenery for themselves and your families you know we expect the numbers to eat to grow even further we are making an outreach to spread the word about the benefits and advantages of working remotely from anguilla thank you so much again Henry Herbert the chairman of the anguilla tourist board thank you for joining thank you jackie hi everyone i'm jackie gifford editor-in-chief of travel leisure and we're continuing on with the evolution of travel how destinations are adapting to a new era and with me today is helen hill the CEO of explore charleston hi helen how are you it's so good to see you it's great to see you too i want to dive right in and to say that charleston is a city that is big on food and celebration so how have your restaurants your small businesses been affected by the pandemic and how are they adapting well jackie as you know you know dining is so much more than you know what we put in our mouth you know it's the sights and the sounds and the amazing smells and you know i don't think i've ever been more proud of our small businesses you know we always hear that like small business is the backbone of america but we felt it in a different way you know our restaurateurs have done things like gourmet meals to go and you know taken a parking lot and turned it into like a magical you know dining room so they've just been so innovative in every possible way um and it's really let us know what their employees mean to them that they're working so hard to keep them the other thing you know about food and just again celebration in charleston it's it's it's a city that has grown over the years you've increased your airlift and because of all these things right because of these amazing small businesses but i i suspect and i i see this happening to other destinations you've also really become a huge drive from right now because people are wanting to just hop in their cars and do something that's close by so has your visitor profile changed a little bit since the began absolutely we've been really fortunate that we've been able to stay mostly open and it's been really fun to welcome um our visitors from our neighboring states at our newly renovated visitor center um that we've just opened during the pandemic um we've it's been so much fun to talk to folks from north carolina that say like oh i haven't been here in four or five years and charleston looks wonderful so it has been really fun for us how do you explain what all your hotel partners have done to keep people safe whether it's you know extra sanitation measures put in place you know wearing masks and gloves and restaurants how does that how do you explain that to people in a way that also doesn't feel off-putting i think that's the real challenge right now for tourism professionals is that when you when you walk people through they want to know that they're going to be safe but they also don't want it to feel as if it's a completely different radically different experience that they know well one of the things we found out is that the average citizen doesn't know already the advanced protocols that hotels and restaurants go through to keep visitors safe on a regular basis it's it's also interesting from a hospitality perspective something that we used to keep in the background in terms of making sure the space was so visually beautiful when they walked in the door now having someone wipe down the door before you come in is is a sign of we're caring for you too right to have someone right there so really it's been you know making sure that our members are doing a good job educating visitors when they arrive about knowing they have to wear a mask helping them understand through the social media channels what they can expect and really how to act the culture too of charleston it's a it's a place that is about outdoor living it's a pedestrian city as well so are there new attractions or things like you said you mentioned earlier a restaurant owner turning a parking lot into a dining space have been able to change and adapt this past year and are you thinking of even opening new outdoor attractions in the future well you know one thing we've learned Jackie is i think we took our outdoor living for granted i mean charleston we've always been an indoor outdoor you know whether it's on our piazza and our beautiful historic gardens taken a stroll along the beach you know i don't think that we ever thought about that as an outdoor activity which the world is looking for to be outside and we have several new things that we're looking to promote we've got the international african-american museum coming online that has a great it's right on the beautiful charleston harbour with the indoor outdoor experience we've got our beautiful new cypress gardens and if you've never been to and in a cypress gardens that is a magical magical experience and then we've got the lowline coming which is a 1.7 mile linear park that will open in the next couple of years which was an old railroad track so just a lot of those kind of things helping people get outside i think outdoor living is going to be something that we embrace also you have beaches nearby that are part of the destination so do you see people combining maybe a little bit of time in downtown with a visit to the beach to get a greater a greater experience in the outdoors oh absolutely and it's really been fun to see the experience of back to our neighboring states folks that haven't had a chance to be in charleston maybe in in the last several years you know being able to bike across the beautiful copper river bridge you know on a bicycle and ride to the beach i mean just some wonderful things that perhaps people as a visitor didn't think about before i feel it as a new yorker our arts and culture is really what keeps many of many of our cities thriving and those those artists those events those things have been so hard hit and museum you know museum struggled during this time so what what is a way forward for some of these businesses how do we keep them going and how do we keep and how do we keep visitors engaged from afar what's been fun to see is to see the innovation at our beautiful gill yard auditorium to see the performers that have done things even for children virtually to to bring music into their home everything from learning about jazz it just has been magic to see that happening again it's probably not the exact same experience that you have in person but it's a way to keep it alive until we can be together again thank you hell and hell the CEO of explore charles and thank you for joining me