Elite Island Resorts, a chain of upscale hotels — including the St. James’s Club on Antigua and the Palm Island Resort in the Grenadines — announced Friday that it would accept payments in stock for vacations booked by Jan. 31, using the value the stock was trading at on July 1. The deal, in effect, gives travelers a chance to roll back the value of currently depressed stocks to levels before the market began to really sink.
Genius idea. This is perhaps one of the most creative ways to create instant value from unutilized space, get extra upside and generate significant positive PR at low cost. It is a rarity to find such innovative marketing and financial acumen in the same person in the hospitality industry.
