The Intimate Hotels of Barbados group is celebrating 23 years of providing service excellence in the hospitality industry. This membership association of over 40 hotels started in 2000 under the trading name Small Hotels of Barbados Inc. and represents the best of the island’s small hotels, apartments, guest houses and villas.
To celebrate its 23rd anniversary, Intimate Hotels of Barbados is taking its valued public behind the scenes to learn some of its history and meet some members of the group. Today we introduce Bayfield House Barbados.
The property, which is located in Mullins, St Peter is a ten-bedroom guest house that has spacious breezy verandas, a terrace restaurant and a bar that looks out into the immaculate freshwater pool over a tropical garden. The property has a rich and diverse history as it was an 82 acres plantation house in the 18th Century.
Trevor Ramsay who is the proprietor of the property has spent over 57 years in the hospitality industry. He said he knew when he left school in the United Kingdom that he had a vested interest in the tourism sector and after some training in the UK he headed to the Caribbean.
“I left school in 1963 and just after I went to a catering college called Ealing Catering College in the United Kingdom and I did a three-year management course there. After leaving there I worked in the UK for two years and the last job I had was in London at the High Park Towers. I saw a job advertised in Antigua which offered two and a half times more than what I was earning in London which was 9 pounds a week. I ended up in Antigua and whilst there I met a lot of people who worked in the islands who told me that I should go to Barbados as it is much nicer than Antigua. I came to Barbados for holiday and sure enough they were dead right. I looked for a job while I was here on holiday and I got a job at Discovery Bay as an Assistant Manager,” he said.
Working at Discovery Bay in 1969 was just the beginning of Trevor’s love for Barbados. After managing many upscale properties as well as the former Buccaneer Bay and Bamboo Beach Bar which he sold in 1991 he decided that he would turn his retirement home into a hotel in 2007.
“I did not intend to turn the property into a Bed and Breakfast, that came afterwards when I retired, and I wondered what to do with it. It was really to keep myself occupied during retirement. In fact, we are looking to put the property up for sale soon as I will be 78-years-old soon and maybe it is time for me to hang up my boots,” he said.
Despite his plans to sell the property in the not-too distant future Ramsay said while he will miss being a part of the day-to-day operations of Bayfield House, he is thankful to the way in which Intimate Hotels has aided his business since 2006.
“Intimate Hotels has been important because it exposes the property with a lot of similar type properties in Barbados. Many of whom are small privately owned properties owned by Barbadians and we have gotten good exposure from them and their marketing over the years,” he said. (Write Right PR Services)
