Hotels Trade Stays for Stocks

In a bid to turn financial lemons into umbrella drinks, eight upscale Caribbean resorts are pitching depressed investors to pay for vacations with depressed stocks.

The new Elite Island Resorts promotion lets customers purchase a stay of up to $5,000 with a choice of 100 S&P stocks, their share values rolled back to pre-collapse, July 1 levels.

So, for example, instead of coughing up $3,750 for a weeklong January stay for four at Antigua’s all-inclusive St. James’s Club, would-be vacationers could transfer 94 shares of their Aetna stock. Worth $40 a share on July 1, it closed at a measly $21.39 on Thursday –effectively giving guests a nearly 50 percent discount.

Already ladling out freebies and promotions in the wake of plunging occupancy levels and faced with a grim forecast for 2009, high-end hotels are trying to break through the competitive clutter without resorting to “suicidal pricing.”