Kerzner will move to close its 423-room Beach Tower hotel for September through to the end of October, sparking work schedules cuts for employees and suggesting the destination's titan is no more immune to economic slowdown than those lower on the totem pole.

"Traditionally September and October are months when we experience low occupancies," Atlantis Senior VP of Public Affairs Ed Fields told Guardian Business, "As we have done in the past, the Beach Tower will be closed from September 1, to October 31, 2008.

"As is customary, employees will be encouraged to take vacation and they will be put on rotation, hence work days will be reduced based on occupancy and in accordance with the Industrial Agreement."

Fields is also quick to add that the company is not "anticipat(ing) any layoffs at this time" and will reopen the hotel if in fact bookings warrant it.

Nonetheless, the planned closure, albeit temporary, confirms speculation Atlantis, one of the country's largest employers, is in fact expecting the current lull in visitor numbers to continue.

That projection may be increasingly based on intelligence not only from its own reservations department, which continued to take September bookings for the Beach Tower Tuesday, but from North American analysts suggesting the flagging American economy shows no signs of a turnaround.

Canada, another chief recipient of U.S. travelers, is now suffering with a slide of 1.2 percent to 1.9 million American tourists from May to June.

Here in The Bahamas, the most recent statistics point to a visitor arrivals contraction of 0.9 percent to 2.06 million for the first five months of the year. That factors in the 1.5 percent expansion in air visitors and the 2.0 percent reduction in cruise passengers.

Nassau has generally fared better, with a 9.1 percent drop, its sea segment, just outstripping the 5.0 percent expansion in air visitors relative to the same year-ago period.

The less-than-impressive numbers speak to a region-wide reality, a harsh one even the celebrated Atlantis appears increasingly unable to escape. That's despite its direct market advertising campaign and the increased cachet of the resort courtesy of last year's Cove opening. The latest addition to its inventory pool has quickly become the "it" property with Hollywood stars looking for a little high-publicity R&R.

That formula for success had largely fostered the belief in some Atlantis workers, argues one analyst, their income levels were unsinkable. That may be increasingly doubtful.

Still, Kerzner's move to shut down the most modest of its accommodation centers may ultimately accrue to the benefit of the other hotels blanketing both sides of the Paradise Island Bridge and the thousands of Bahamians manning the front lines.

According to one local hotel manager, the 600-room Cove has placed downward pressure on the destination's room rates over the last six months as Atlantis looks to grow its guest load with rate cuts ultimately forcing other properties to follow suit.

"The truth is that if you price your rates too close to Atlantis, even the Beach Tower, you'll probably lose that booking to Atlantis," the hotelier told Guardian Business earlier this month. "At several points this year, because of the economy, Atlantis has lowered its rates and we've had to follow."

The pending shutdown of the Beach Tower may protect or even widen the buffer between Atlantis's low end and the price point of those lower in the pecking order.

By VERNON CLEMENT JONES