IDB was not sought for funding of Marriott Hotel – govt

The Guyana government said that it did not apply to the Inter-American Development Bank for funding to build a Marriott hotel here, and deemed a Stabroek News report which dealt with the issue on Thursday as misleading.

In a release on Thursday, government said “Stabroek News’ (SN) headline of December 16, 2010:  “IDB unveils $$ for eight Marriott hotels…but Guyana still not on radar” is misleading.  “The simple fact is Guyana has not applied to the IDB for funding of this hotel project, and therefore could not be expected to feature on such a list. Despite the periodic press releases providing updates on progress, it is disappointing that SN continues to portray this Marriott project in a negative light,” the release said. 

On Tuesday, the IDB announced that it has approved a master financing facility of up to US$42 million in long-term loans for up to eight Marriott hotels. The hotels are to be developed by Caribe Hospitality SA in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Mexico, and will meet world-class environmental and sustainability standards. 

Marriott had announced on June 22 that it will open its first hotel in Guyana in 2013. At the time of the announcement, it said that the 160-room Georgetown Marriott Hotel is on track to receive LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, and would be Marriott’s first LEED hotel in the Caribbean & Latin America.  However, the IDB release did not mention Guyana. 

According to the release from the IDB, to receive funding under the financing facility, the hotels must be capable of obtaining LEED certification. LEED, which has become the dominant standard for green building designs, requires buildings to meet specific parameters in areas such as energy conservation, efficiency in water use, carbon dioxide emissions, improved indoor environmental quality, and resource management. 

In addition to its economic and environmental benefits, LEED certification can be a powerful marketing tool that could generate greater foreign exchange earnings and more employment in the tourism and hospitality sector. In Latin America and the Caribbean, most of the LEED-certified buildings completed until now have housed offices or commercial spaces located primarily in Mexico and Brazil.

The hotels financed under the Financing Facility will be the first LEED certified Marriott hotels in the participating countries.  The Financing Facility is the first private sector financing in the tourism and hospitality sector provided through the IDB’s Structured and Corporate Financing Department (SCF), and follows the development of the IDB’s Sustainable Tourism Scorecard. 

Caribe Hospitality SA, a holding company headquartered in Cost Rica, created to develop Marriott-operated hotels in the Central American and Caribbean regions, will develop the projects, and Marriott International Incorporated will be responsible for running them. The first hotel to be financed is a Marriott Courtyard of 127 rooms in Alajuela, near the Juan Santamaría International Airport, 20 kilometres from San José, Costa Rica. 

Marriott International Inc had said that the Georgetown hotel would operate under a management agreement with Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI).  AHI is currently owned by the government of Guyana, and is part of a public-private partnership between the government of Guyana and private sector investors.  

“We are thrilled to partner with AHI and the government of Guyana to open our first Marriott hotel in the country, representing Marriott’s presence in another capital city in South America,” Laurent de Kousemaeker, chief development officer for Marriott International in the Caribbean & Latin America, was quoted in a release as saying. “…we are confident that it will play an instrumental role in the continued economic and commercial development of Guyana.” 

Speaking on behalf of the government of Guyana, President Bharrat Jagdeo had said, “Guyana looks forward to a first-class hotel operated by Marriott International.  This public private partnership project will transform the hospitality landscape, and can be expected to encourage more travel and tourism development for our nation. The project will be an integrated entertainment complex, ideally located at the estuary of the Demerara River, where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The project will have a casino, night club, restaurant, and boardwalk.”            

The hotel’s state-of-the-art architectural and interior design concept would have been created by the firm of Urbahn Architects from New York.