Buddy’s International Hotel and Resort is scheduled to open on February 20 and its foreign staff complement has begun to arrive in the country.
Proprietor Omprakash Shivraj told Stabroek News yesterday that the Chinese nationals who will manage the Chinese restaurant at the hotel are due in the country this week; the Indian nationals who will manage the hotel are already here.
Buddy’s International Hotel and Resort was almost 80% complete when the Caribbean Engineering and Management Consultants (CEMCO) conducted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) last year to meet requirements to obtain an environmental permit.
CEMCO was also re-quired to conduct an audit of work already completed and when the EIA began 80% of the foundation, superstructure and structural components were complete along with site clearance.According to the EIA report, the hotel and resort is on a plot of land about 3.2 hectares at Tract ‘BS’ Block 2, Public Road, Providence, north of the Providence Stadium. Construction on Buddy’s began in December 1995. The project was estimated at some US$10 million to US$12 million, but this was reported to be insufficient and additional funding was required owing to increases in the cost of building materials including steel. Five mortgages, including, an advance from the Guyana government, were secured to aid in the financing of the project.
Because the project has taken advantage of available tax incentives offered by the government, its contribution to government revenues will not materialize until after the five-year exemption it enjoys.
Shivraj, the report said, estimated the worth of these tax incentives during the construction phase at about US$1 million.
It is expected that the project would create jobs, directly and indirectly; the earning of foreign exchange; contribution to tax revenues; promotion of human resource development in the field of tourism; and enhancement of property values in the area.
In terms of tourism – the project is being touted as boosting the travel and hospitality industry – the average per capita tourism expenditure for hotel staying guests is estimated at US$171 for Guyana. Since visitor expenditure is not available for Guyana, the report said the estimate was inferred from data averaged for Jamaica (US$141); Barbados – US$185; Aruba US$135; and the Bahamas US$218.
Annual guest expenditure arising from the project could be estimated at US$9.3 million per year on average occupancy levels of 30% or 130 guests (double occupancy).
The hotel boasts over 250 rooms including five presidential suites, 15 executive suites, two restaurants, a casino, five bars, a conference room to accommodate some 500 people, a gym, a swimming pool, a stage and band stand, a car park with the capacity to accommodate 600 cars, lawn tennis and basketball courts.
The report said the timing of the conduct of the EIA was the main constraint as construction work on the hotel was quite advanced when the study was commissioned. “The acquisition of baseline information on the pre-construction physical environment was limited to a comparison with surrounding undisturbed land. This, however, was determined to be a reasonable approach as the entire area is fairly homogenous in terms of physiography and ecology.”
The impacts identified by the surrounding community “were entirely positive.” The majority of respondents rated the project as “necessary” as they relate to direct and indirect employment as well as a boost to Guyana’s tourism product and enhancement of the surrounding areas.
The negative comments were related to impacts experienced during the construction phase and those affected were mainly in the Nandy Park and Greenfield park area. They were related to noise pollution and disturbances associated with pile driving, heavy equipment usage during the night, and dust pollution. In Greenfield Park, two residents complained of wall cracking.
While Guyana is ideally poised for nature and adventure type based tourism, the assessors agreed with Shivraj that less traditional markets such as sports tourism – including casino gambling – and a first-class hotel property will attract visitors across the spectrum of tourism markets.
Shivraj sees his development as catering “just as much to the needs of the business travel market, or travellers, in the future from other Latin American destinations, using Georgetown as the gateway to the Eastern Caribbean.”
His marketing strategy “is less driven by the need to identify nice overseas markets to tap into, as to simply ensure, through the competitive marketing strategies and the quality of his product, market share penetration of the 400,000” annual visitors to Guyana. It should be noted, however, that based on available statistics from the Guyana Tourism Authority, that in recent years the annual number of visitors to Guyana from 1993 to the present time ranged from 75,000 to just over 115,000 annually with the exception of those arriving through Moleson Creek and Lethem.
The multi-disciplinary EIA team included engineer Raymond Latchmansingh, geologist Aedan Earle, biology and ecology specialist Kwesi Nkofi, socio-economic tourism specialist George Campbell and environmental officers and Hemwantie Tiwari and Marciano Glasgow.