Marriott opening now pushed back to February

-two hotels up for sale, cite low occupancy

The Guyana Marriott Hotel Project will miss another opening deadline this December and is now slated for opening in February of next year.

Stabroek News understands that Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI), owners of the project and Republic Bank Ltd (RBL) of Trinidad and Tobago were up to October still formally completing the approval of US$27M in debt financing. This process is required by the two Hong Kong businessmen, Victor How Chung Chan and Xu Han of ACE Square Investments Ltd prior to completing their onetime payment of US$8 million as the private investors.

The US$58M project has missed multiple completion deadlines including August of this year. It had been hoped that the hotel would have been opened for the peak Christmas season but training of hotel workers to five-star standards had been seen as one of the challenges along the way.

The Marriott project has been heavily criticised for the lack of transparency. The private in-vestors were named this year, years after the ground was broken and the project commenced construction in 2011. The length of time that the debt financing has taken has raised concerns as to whether or not the project is still on solid footing.

As the project is pushed back yet again, two of Guyana’s hotels and resorts are up for sale; the Aracari Resort at Versailles, West Bank Demerara for US$5M and the Prairie International Hotel, located at Coverden, East Bank Demerara for US$2M.

Aracari Resort
Aracari Resort

The owners of the two hotels up for sale stated that while no debt was attached to either of the properties there was little traffic. Owner of the Aracari Resort, Sase Shewnarain, who resides in Canada and is not a Guyanese resident stated plainly that “things function when I am there, but quality is not always assured when I am not.”

He said that at 66-years-old the vision of the resort was not yet fulfilled. He acknowledged that he was not an hotelier and that it had been an experience in which he invested over $600-700 million when it was being built in 2008. It was finished in 2009. When the resort was opened in 2008 it was stated that the cost was US$4M.

Shewnarain said that the property has the possibility of expansion and could qualify for a casino. He stated that annually the occupancy of the resort was no more than 20 percent. The hotel currently has over 52 units comprising basic to deluxe accommodations ranging in price from US$45 to US$90 per night.

Speaking to Stabroek News, one of the owners Joyce Waldron stated that while Prairie has been operational for over 22 years the occupancy has suffered. She said that the resort was put up for sale earlier this year and that a buyer had shown interest. Waldron stated that the deal fell through and the family made a decision to once again put the 18-room property which sits on 2.5 acres of land up for sale, dropping the price by US$500,000.

She spoke candidly about having a vision for the property which was very successful in its earlier days, but that at 71 years old she and her husband were not up to keeping the resort going. She echoed Shewnarain’s sentiments about having children with their own careers and that the resorts needed hands-on handling.

She said that currently the resort would accommodate approximately 10 persons weekly which could be a 55 percent occupancy at the highest compared to the 70 percent occupancy the family stated when the property first went up for sale in April of this year. Waldron told Stabroek News that the resort has benefitted from customer loyalty over the years.

With the closure of the Tower Hotel on Main Street and the well-documented struggles with occupancy rates by various mid-level hoteliers in Guyana, the Marriott’s ability to sell a full hotel at the five-star level has been questioned.

Explaining its abrupt closure on May 23rd this year, the Tower Hotel said its business had declined dramatically in recent times.

“In recent times, the Hotel has seen a dramatic decline in business and despite the best efforts of management; the hotel was still unable to meet certain financial obligations… While the Hotel remained asset rich, there was insufficient liquid cash available to management to finance the day to day operating expenses of the hotel,” a statement read.