by Marlon Madden
Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Rudy Grant is eager to see the start of several planned tourism-related constructions, saying they will be an enhancement to the destination’s offerings.
Since coming to office in 2018, Government has been announcing plans for private sector investment in several hotel and tourism-related projects along the prime waterfront stretch of land from Bay Street area to Holborn, St Michael.
In addition to new hotels, it is expected that there will be expansion of existing ones and construction of a major conference and convention facility.
In 2019, the Mia Mottley-led administration also held a major tourism investment conference, which was designed to encourage local and overseas investors to invest.
In her budget presentation last month, Mottley said her administration was at an advanced stage of discussions with investors on the development of a hotel at the Government Procurement Department, obliquely opposite Kensington Oval at Holborn.
She also said she anticipated that the Sam Lord’s Castle Wyndham project in St Philip would be completed within this financial year, while the highly anticipated Hyatt Ziva hotel project on Bay Street was closer to a start date.
Mottley also indicated that she was expecting other developments across the island to start soon including the Royalton project in Holetown, the Beaches project in St Peter and Margaritaville. So far, the old Caribe hotel building has been cleared for the construction of the planned Hotel Indigo in Hastings, Christ Church.
“There is to be a cineplex and commercial centre for US$50 million at Welches, the Porters townhouse development at US$20 million, a Nikki Beach hotel that will be done at US$40 million and the St Lawrence marina,” said Mottley.
Grant told Today’s BUSINESS that tourism officials were eagerly awaiting the start and completion of the planned projects, stating that Barbados was in need of additional rooms at various levels to help boost the island as a tourism destination.
“The truth is that we do need, I think, to have additional rooms and rooms at a particular level. We are certainly hopeful, based on what Government has signalled to us, that you will see some of those projects started soon,” said Grant.
“There is no doubt that they will contribute to the overall tourism landscape, they will bring diversity in what we have and they also will make our destination a bit more attractive as well, and they will assist in terms of their own marketing dollars with respect to the tourism industry. As soon as they start, I guess that will be good for us,” he said.
Making it clear that it was up to the investors and regulatory approvals from government to decide how soon the projects would take place, Grant said he remained optimistic of them coming on stream “soon”.
Existing hotels have also been slow in carrying out major upgrades in recent times due to the drying up of cash flow as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which ground the industry to a halt back in 2020.
Grant did not see any major upgrades taking place this coming summer period either, though he indicated that some BHTA members have still been able to carry out some repair work over the past year under the Barbados Employment and Sustainable Transformation (BEST) programme.
“The major refurbishment and renovations we are not seeing a lot of that now coming from the hotels and I think that is understandable because you have to make sure you use the cash to keep the business going and to keep your staff employed and be able to ride out this COVID period and we are able to see some degree of normalcy returning to the industry,”
he explained.
One of the major refurbishments expected this year will come from the Marriott Group, which is said to be on the verge of starting a US$150 million upgrade programme on its properties that it acquired from the luxury Elegant Hotels Group some three years ago.
That group operates seven luxury hotels on the island – Tamarind, Colony Club, Treasure Beach,
The House, Crystal Cove, Turtle Beach and Waves Hotel and Spa.
Chairman of the BHTA Renee Coppin said she was looking forward to the day when hoteliers were able to increase their investment in renewable forms of energy and sell the excess to the national grid.
She explained that while some properties have been able to invest in solar photovoltaic systems over the past two years through the BEST programme, there was simply a need to increase the capacity of the amount of electricity allowed to be sold to the national grid in each category.
“We are very excited about that (renewable energy) push . . . I think the issue now is in terms of capacity, and I think the programmes are delayed right now in terms of establishing how we will connect to the grid,” she said.
“That is something I think we have to look at from a higher perspective, but there has been a lot of interest certainly in our sector,” said Coppin.
She disclosed that the Intimate Hotels of Barbados (IHB), a member of the BHTA, has been examining the possibility of a solar photovoltaic farm on behalf of its members.
marlonmadden@barbadosroday.bb
