More than 100 staff and workers at the Wyndham Hotel are facing an uncertain future as the prestigious South Shore resort closes later this week.

The hotel intends to reopen on April 1 but union boss Derrick Burgess last night spoke of his unease about the sudden decision to close the hotel for a refurbishment period following a management take over by the international Cendant Corporation.

Only six days notice of the intended temporary closure was given to the Bermuda Industrial Union, according to Mr. Burgess, who is now seeking reassurances about the future of its members employed at the hotel.

Guest workers at the hotel are believed to have been told that they will have to leave the Island.

Yesterday hotel owner Clifford Schorer would only say: ?We are working on the question of the staff with the management.?

The hotel will shut sometime before the end of this week and not reopen until April 1.

In October the management of the hotel was bought by the US-based Cendant Corporation, one of the largest hotel franchisers in the world.

According to BIU President Mr. Burgess there was no mention of a shut down when he had talks with the hotel management at the time of the Cendant take-over last October.

?I?m very concerned about being given only six days notice that the hotel is to be closed. We were told in October and November that the hotel would not be closed,? he said.

?This doesn?t bode well with me. It seems like something else is happening. It just doesn?t smell right.?

Mr. Burgess said he had heard that all the guest workers at the hotel will be repatriated as a consequence of the closure, and that there was likely to be only one or two workers kept on doing the closure to maintain the building.

?We are talking about people?s lives, people being laid off and I understand that this concerns the local management and the local staff,? he said.

The Wyndham Bermuda Resort and Spa was formerly the Sonesta Hotel and had much of its roof and west wing damaged by Hurricane Fabian in 2003, but reopened for business the following summer.

In a statement, hotel general manager Mike Collard said: ?In order to fully explore all the options available to the hotel due to the sale of Wyndham Hotel to Cendant Corporation, the property will be closing the first week in January. ?The hotel will resume operations on April 1. This will afford all parties involved ample time to explore the many options available to the resort.?

Staff would be returning to work in March, according to Mr. Collard, to train for a ?new and exciting operation?. Hotel boss Mr. Schorer suggested the closure would allow time for modifications to be made and for the hotel to undergo a ?re-branding? now that it was under the management of Cendant. He said he was waiting to be informed what would be required.

Mike Winfield, President of the Bermuda Hotel Association, was not overly concerned with the developments at the Wyndham.

He said: ?They are pretty clear on what they intend to do. It is symptomatic of the state of the industry during the winter, it is a period when there are not huge amounts of reservations and if a hotel is looking for reconfiguring it is the ideal time for it.?

As went to press we were unable to reach a spokesman for the Cendant Corporation in New Jersey.