Elbow Beach is back on track to play a leading role in Bermuda’s hotel industry again.

This from the resort’s new boss, Ed Burns, who told The Royal Gazette that his first six months at the helm had seen a major turnaround in fortune and morale at one of Bermuda’s oldest institutions.

Mr Burns took the reins on April 1 as Elbow shed the Mandarin brand label and launched as an independent hotel.

And the veteran US hotelier says progress has been swift since the changeover, and occupancy figures have already stabilised to last year’s levels.

He believes Elbow Beach is now in a great position to target the corporate group market as well as reclaim its place at the top of the Island’s hotel tree.

“The decision to go independent was a big risk, but it was also a great opportunity,” Mr Burns said.

“We have taken certain areas of the building that were not operational and made them operational.

“We inherited a subdued team of employees; it had been a very difficult transition for the employees to go through to see the hotel partially closed.

“We have recharged these people and tried to provide optimism and hope for the future.

“There has been substantial landscaping done throughout the property and we have re- established a lobby bar for our guests.

“We created a personal assistance programme to give our guests a more personal service and we have gone back to relying on the charm of the Bermudian people and the cultural make-up of the Island.

“We are committed to the Bermudian product; our employees need to be and should be Bermudian, and they are.

“The second phase is the old guest rooms; we will look at the possibility of opening them again or replacing them, but nothing has been finalised.

“To have this part of the building offline hurts us in the market place and once we get confident we can potentially reoccupy that area.”

Mr Burns and his team have targeted the US and Canada through a very direct sales drive to boost occupancy, and this will expand to the UK in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile the hotel is set to launch a new drive to attract convention and corporate group visitors.

“By August we had stabilised to last year’s level of occupancy and we have maintained that,” Mr Burns said. “Given what we have changed and the work that has gone on that is a good result.

“We are now planning to aggressively go back into the group marketplace.

“We have 98 rooms and we are adding 9,000 square feet of meeting facilities that we believe will make us the best venue for this kind of visitor.

“We want to bring in 35 percent new occupancy through group business next year.

“While in the leisure sector we will be making a more dedicated and powerful effort with our direct sales through travel agencies.

“We have had significant repeat business in just the last six months which is encouraging. We now have a very high level of service and morale is high.

“The new approach has really worked. We have come a long way already in terms of how we manage ourselves and this is beginning to show on TripAdvisor. We are back on track to where this great hotel used to be.

“I believe we will climb to the top of the market and we will dominate for a very long time to come, and this will help Bermuda.”

The new Elbow Beach boss said he believed casinos could also help to rejuvenate the tourism industry by providing another amenity to visitors.

But he urged caution, saying that the implementation process had to be ‘very well thought out and carefully managed’.

“I believe we can grow the economy substantially through simply marketing Bermuda better as an amazing destination,” Mr Burns said. “Casinos can have a place in Bermuda, but it is a very difficult thing to manage.”