Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon says that “diligent efforts continue to be made” to ensure that the Marriott Hotel becomes a reality.
Responding to a question about the progress of the hotel, Luncheon said “the Marriott Hotel is still on”. He was, however, unable to provide further details.
Luncheon said the project “has been reaffirmed over and over again” up to very recently. “Diligent efforts continue to be made to ensure that this project becomes reality,” he said.
The project has been on the drawing board since 2006. Last June, Marriott International Inc announced that it will open a hotel in Georgetown in 2013. On that occasion, it was said that the hotel would operate under a management agreement with Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI), which is currently owned by the Government of Guyana as part of a public-private partnership between the Government and private sector investors. It was said that Urbahn Architects of New York will create the hotel’s state-of-the-art architectural and interior design concept.
The proposed the 160-room Georgetown Marriott Hotel was reportedly on track to receive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the US Green Building Council and to be Marriott’s first LEED hotel in the Caribbean and Latin America.
However, in December the Inter-America Development Bank (IDB) announced that it had approved a master financing facility that would see up to US$42 million in long-term loans being used to finance up to as many as eight Marriott hotels. These hotels are to be developed by Caribe Hospitality S.A.
A release from the IDB said the hotels will be constructed in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Mexico and they are expected to receive LEED certification. Government officials, however, have said that Guyana did not apply for funding from the IDB.
