Peter Campbell, who along with his wife Kemilee, bought the property from the James family last year, says the break allowed major renovation which will make the hotel an even better facility, in time for its planned reopening on June 8.

“Going forward with us being in a better position than we were prior to COVID in terms of our infrastructure, we are now poised to make overall function and operation of the hotel more seamless and easier for our staff and our guests… we have to be extremely creative and innovative to incorporate all the social distancing and the necessary changes to make the property COVID- 'friendly',” Campbell said.

Campbell said staff will return to work in a systematic manner with enough personnel being on the hotel grounds to serve all needs until there can be a full recall of the work force.

“As it relates to our guests, we are putting in the necessary infrastructure to make social distancing applicable right throughout the lobby, pool area, dining area and our gym… We have already briefed our staff as to the sanitisation exercises that we will be carrying out right throughout, going forward,” he added.

The hotel is also investing in cutting-edge communications' technology to assist individual guests and also to provide online virtual capacity for conferences and the like.