Farley: Marriott Resort will complement new airport

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go's ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor is set for a ma­jor boost with the con­struc­tion of a $500 mil­lion Mar­riott re­sort at Rocky Point, a project ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by 2029.

The sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the de­vel­op­ment took place yes­ter­day and was at­tend­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett.

The project, be­ing un­der­tak­en by Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Ltd, is ex­pect­ed to take ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 months to com­plete and will add a four-star, 200-room ho­tel, vil­las, town­hous­es and a range of recre­ation­al ameni­ties to To­ba­go's tourism prod­uct. Once op­er­a­tional, the re­sort is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate near­ly 800 jobs.

Au­gus­tine com­mend­ed Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels for tak­ing in­to ac­count the THA's rec­om­men­da­tions, as well as con­cerns raised by stake­hold­ers dur­ing the plan­ning process. He as­sured the pub­lic that a beach ac­cess path­way would be main­tained, there would be no con­struc­tion on the beach it­self and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly re­spon­si­ble prac­tices would be ob­served through­out the project.

The Spey­side as­sem­bly­man said pri­vate-sec­tor in­vest­ment re­mains crit­i­cal to the growth and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of To­ba­go's tourism in­dus­try.

"This has to com­ple­ment the new air­port ter­mi­nal that opened this morn­ing. Thank you very much for choos­ing To­ba­go, and we hope your in­vest­ment will bring re­turns," Au­gus­tine said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so wel­comed the in­vest­ment, prais­ing Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels for its con­fi­dence in To­ba­go's tourism po­ten­tial.

"We have to make mon­ey, and we have to bring in in­vestors to bring in mon­ey for the ben­e­fit of T&T," she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised Mar­riott brand is ex­pect­ed to at­tract mil­lions of trav­ellers over time, adding that To­ba­go's bio­di­ver­si­ty, nat­ur­al beau­ty and the warmth of its peo­ple make the is­land an at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion for vis­i­tors from around the world.

Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels chair­man John Aboud sought to ease en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists' con­cerns sur­round­ing the de­vel­op­ment dur­ing the event, pledg­ing that the com­pa­ny would ad­here to all con­di­tions out­lined by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) in its Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC).

Aboud said the de­vel­op­ers would work close­ly with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to pre­serve and high­light the unique at­trib­ut­es of the Rocky Point area.

"We pro­pose to use to our ad­van­tage the surf­ing, the tur­tle watch­ing and even the rem­nants of Fort Monk," he said.

He al­so re­vealed that IDB In­vest, the pri­vate-sec­tor arm of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), has ex­pressed strong in­ter­est in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the project.