GRAND ANSE BEACH — While other hotels and resorts have reopened their doors in the midst of COVID-19, Spice Island Beach Resort in Grenada has decided to take a different approach.

The resort has announced that it will delay plans to reopen until October 2021 with the hope that the pandemic will have subsided by then.

According to the Hopkin family, who owns the resort, the decision to delay reopening was made to “protect our guests, our family and our employees” from the spike in infections that’s being seen across the Caribbean as islands and hotels have reopened.

“Our employees, many of whom have been with us for years and have become our extended family, would like nothing more than to welcome guests back to Spice to relax away from the crisis,” says Janelle Hopkin, president and managing director of the resort. “We have been watching what has been happening internationally and have made the decision to wait.”

Hopkin, who notes that the resort enjoys a 45% repeat clientele rate, adds that the team will use the lockdown period to complete enhancements and implement health and safety protocols in order to “protect our guests when they do return in 2021.” Spice Island will be working with the guidelines of local and international health officials regarding COVID-19 to make the necessary adjustments to its operations.

Hopkin, who recently succeeded her late father, Sir Royston Hopkin KCMG, as the resort’s President and Managing Director, has committed to completing ongoing enhancements that commenced two years ago.

“There is a lot more work to be done to get us to the next level and that is what we will be using this time to achieve,” she adds. “My intention is to complete the work my dad began by sticking to the master plan he unveiled in 2018 and rolling out a new and improved resort in 2021.”