The real estate arm of Jamaican-based attractions company Chukka Caribbean Adventures was apparently unscathed by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, posting its best year ever in 2020.

In spite of the downturn caused by the pandemic, Chukka’s real estate subsidiary posted profits in the region of 200-300 per cent in 2020, the best year on record that its director, Alexander Melville, can recall.

Speaking recently at Sygnus Business at Breakfast series, Melville credits the performance on the solid management team in place, which was able to weather through the pandemic.

However, he admitted that the tourism business never fared so well and is now operating in the red, having been closed for almost eight months earning no revenue because of the closure of tourism in Jamaica, particularly cruise shipping from where Chukka Adventures gets most of its business. In spite of slow down in business, Melville is extremely happy with what the attractions company has been able to achieve so far.

“We made a lot of investment in technology. As the business starts back, we are now seeing those benefits; we have digital waivers; people have to sign no longer on paper; we have electronic brochures, thus reduce printing costs considerably,” Melville explained.

Chukka coming out of the red in September

When questioned by the Caribbean Business Report, the Chukka Caribbean director advised that the entity should be out of the red by the end of its fiscal year, which is in September. Melville is confident that the company will start making a profit after September, pointing out that already profit margins are going up.

“The profit for person coming in is now much higher than pre-COVID so those trends will continue. We will be out of the red by end of this fiscal year and back into profits,” Melville advised.

During the eight months of inoperability, Chukka put its finance committee at work in charting a way forward to return to profitability so that when the business resumes, it is going to be more profitable. One of the first strategies rolled out was investment in technology and a second was shoring up the company’s finances and capital base.

This resulted in the company accessed bond market for funds to get it through the pandemic. In additional the finance committee was able to renegotiate with bond holders successfully putting the case forward for breathing room on interest payments.

As such the company was given a moratorium on interest payments, which was very helpful. With hotels are now at 40 per cent occupancy but not fully back to normal and cruise line opening back in July, Chukka is seeing better days to come as it plans an increase its price per person admission to its attractions.