There was an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about a major expansion at Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas. This is also the first I've heard about the closing of Cerromar Beach in Puerto Rico. Here is the text:

FROM THE ARCHIVES: May 27, 2003

Atlantis Resort in Bahamas
To Get Expensive Overhaul

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The sprawling Atlantis resort in the Bahamas will undergo a $600 million expansion in a deal approved during the weekend by the government there.

In return for a complex package of government concessions, Bahamas-based resort company Kerzner International Inc. is planning to add a 1,200-room hotel tower and 116 two-bedroom time-share suites to Atlantis's 2,317 rooms, said Butch Kerzner, the company's president, and the islands' Prime Minister Perry Christie. The company will also build three luxury villas at the Ocean Club, a separate luxury hotel located near Atlantis .

Roughly 350,000 people a year visit Atlantis . The resort sprawls over 560 acres of lagoons, pools, hotels, shops, water rides and beach on Paradise Island, which is connected to Nassau by a pair of short bridges.

The Bahamas government has promised upgrades for the airport and island infrastructure, in return for a $600 million expansion project for the giant Atlantis resort.

The expansion plans for Atlantis include a new dolphin-swim attraction and other water-entertainment features, four new restaurants, retail shops, convention space and the creation of an 18-hole golf course on a nearby island called Athol. The expansion, about half of which will be paid for with debt and the rest from the company's cash flow, will bring Kerzner International's total investment in the Atlantis megaresort to $1.7 billion.

This is the resort's third big expansion and it comes as business there has been surprisingly resilient during the past two years. Elsewhere, particularly in the Caribbean, tourism has struggled with a drastic drop in people's willingness to travel by air from fears of terrorism and concerns about the slow economy. Hyatt Hotels Corp. earlier this month said it would shut down its 505-room Hyatt Regency Cerromar Beach in northern Puerto Rico due to suffering business trends and stiff competition from other resorts. The famous resort's closure in July will cost the island 800 jobs, Chicago-based Hyatt said.

By contrast, Atlantis has managed to keep its revenue per available room, a measure of price and occupancy, roughly flat in the first quarter at $239, compared with $240 a year ago. The smaller, luxury Ocean Club has been raising prices, to an average of $750 a night this year, compared with $690 last year, Mr. Kerzner says.

Mr. Kerzner, whose father, Sol Kerzner, founded the company and serves as its chairman and chief executive, says the strength of the business has even surprised executives at the company. The resort has become popular outside of the region's usual target markets of New York and Florida. Atlantis's national advertising campaigns the past few years have drawn guests from the Western U.S. -- a market the resort hadn't expected to reach. Only 40% of Atlantis's guests come from New York and Florida, compared with 70% in 1998, Mr. Kerzner says.

Moreover, families have come in far higher numbers than anticipated. After its last expansion in the late 1990s, the resort was caught without enough rollaway beds for kids and far too many rooms with king-size beds.

The Bahamian government has agreed to a variety of concessions valued at $93 million in return for the expansion, which Kerzner International estimates will create 2,000 jobs. Prime Minister Christie said the expansion will draw further investment into the island country. Atlantis will be "in the same class with Disney -- only better because of the tropical weather," he said Monday.

The government extended Atlantis's casino monopoly in the area by 20 years from the completion of the expansion.

The government will spiff up the dowdy Nassau International Airport with cosmetic renovations, will improve several roads and will begin operating fire and ambulance facilities on Paradise Island. The government also agreed to expand its electricity and telephone systems to accommodate the huge resort. It granted import-duty exemptions on construction materials and extended casino-tax concessions that were set to end in 2009, setting the expiration date at 11 years after the Atlantis expansion is completed.

Kerzner International, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange and operates other resorts including the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, is also pursuing possible projects in Mexico, Thailand, Botswana and South Africa, Mr. Kerzner said.