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THE RETREAT AT CTI
one’s life… Guests at The Retreat are contributing to students being trained at CTI, who are not able to pay for tuition, as well as to their stipend received during their time in the program.” The 12 rooms currently available at The Retreat, with 4 to be added to that count by the official opening in late October of 2017, are tranquil and comfortable, with all of the requisite amenities, including, television and wi-fi, air-conditioning, safe, iron and ironing board, mini-refrigerator, microwave and coffeemaker. The hotel property also aims to see its half Olympic sized pool, and Tea Room restaurant, featuring ‘farm to table’ cuisine, opened ahead of the 2018 season. In addition to having sun, sand and sea, other major projects slated for completion during the upcoming season, include further landscaping, tennis courts, a basketball court, nature trails, gardens of fresh herbs and bush medicines, fresh honey from on-site hives, exercise and meditation areas, hammocks throughout the property, as well as local and eco-tours - including unique experiences like crabbing and birdwatching. With co-founder of the One Eleuthera Foundation, Shaun Ingraham, recognized as the winner of the Sustainable Tourism Award at the 17th Annual Cacique Awards in April of 2017, the ground-breaking training hotel is multi-faceted in both scope and reach and closely networked with partner programs within One Eleuthera Foundation’s CTI. Some of the broad goals, said Audrey Carey is to provide more resources to the Eleuthera community, to build capacity through training, to help strengthen other local businesses, and to develop standards within the local hospitality industry.
Eleuthera’s newest hotel property, The Retreat at CTI is also one of its most innovative and dynamic. Currently, the only training hotel in the country, The Retreat is part of an integrated program of sustainable development, nurtured by the One Eleuthera Foundation’s Center for Training and Innovation (CTI). The holistic program hinges on four key components, said Audrey Carey, Projects & Initiatives Manager at CTI, which include: hospitality, training, innovation, and sustainability. The Retreat at CTI, located in Rock Sound on the grounds of the former Rock Sound Club, was first leased in August of 2015, then officially purchased by the One Eleuthera Foundation in May of 2016, and through
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CTI’s Learn and Earn program, more than 60 students have been trained in the areas of Hotel and Tourism Management, Plumbing, Carpentry, Electrical and Landscaping, as well as Agriculture. The students were given a stipend that allowed them to learn a trade while they earned a wage. Having received its operational license on April 1st of 2017, The Retreat at CTI is now open. The typical guest, described William Wong, Consultant with CTI, “Is someone who wants to get away from everything - all the hustle and bustle, who wants to get in tune with themselves, and who wants to make a difference. When you come, it’s a vacation with a purpose - you are supporting a cause - and making a difference in some-
As part of its mandate to build capacity and strengthen local business, CTI welcomed its first interns from the University of the West Indies’ Hospitality School, a group of 8, in May 2017 for 12 weeks. The students immersed themselves within the hospitality business community in South Eleuthera where they assisted local owners with developing formal business plans, inventory management, accounting procedures, menu planning, design and layout, traffic flow as well as bolstering challenge areas, like, service levels, quality of food, pricing, décor and ambience, and others - receiving in return, invaluable practical experience in real-world hospitality business operations. Interns also assisted CTI students interested in entrepreneurship with development of their business plans. CTI’s recent acquisitions of canning equipment from P.W. Albury (Champion brand), as well as screen printing and embroidery equipment, will allow them to tie into the development of cottage industries, to go hand in hand with the farming and hospitality elements of CTI, while increasing resources available to the Eleuthera community. “Working along with local farmers and Co-ops, we will be able to process and can Eleuthera and Bahamas-wide grown produce,” explained Gacintha Deveaux-Gordon, Registrar with CTI, “and the canning operation will reduce the oftenseen wastage of unsold produce. It’s an avenue for farmers to make more money, and for local