Rowley, Govt at odds over Hilton’s future in T&T

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Con­cerns over a pos­si­ble ex­it by in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel chain Hilton have sparked po­lit­i­cal de­bate, even as in­dus­try stake­hold­ers cau­tion against alarm and call for mea­sured en­gage­ment.

A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­port­ed that Hilton has be­gun steps to­ward with­draw­ing from the State-owned prop­er­ty, cit­ing long-stand­ing struc­tur­al is­sues, de­layed cap­i­tal up­grades, and fi­nan­cial un­der­per­for­mance. While the ex­it is not yet fi­nalised, the de­vel­op­ment has raised fresh ques­tions about the fu­ture of one of the coun­try’s flag­ship tourism as­sets.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as pre­dictable, ar­gu­ing that the is­sues sur­round­ing the ho­tel are well known with­in pol­i­cy-mak­ing cir­cles.

“None of this is sur­pris­ing to any­one in the know, ex­cept that the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment does not know how to pro­ceed and, as usu­al, is try­ing to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion through the me­dia,” Dr Row­ley told Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day.

He al­so chal­lenged a key fig­ure cit­ed in the re­port, say­ing the cost of re­quired up­grades had been un­der­stat­ed.

“The up­grade that is re­quired is not US$600,000 as men­tioned in the sto­ry, but ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$600 mil­lion,” he said.

He added that ne­go­ti­a­tions dur­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion had al­ready re­duced that fig­ure and ad­vanced the process to­ward im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Dr Row­ley main­tained that a struc­tured plan had been in place be­fore the change in ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“If to­day there is still dis­agree­ment and dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Hilton, then that is a mat­ter that must be ex­plained by the Gov­ern­ment, which in­her­it­ed a smooth, on­go­ing, agreed process,” he said.

He crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as “mis­lead­ing leaks,” adding, “This could be Nu­trien II as the in­com­pe­tence reigns.”

For­mer tourism min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns, point­ing to what he de­scribed as a break­down in con­ti­nu­ity.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via What­sApp on Sun­day, Mitchell said that pri­or to leav­ing of­fice, the Gov­ern­ment had al­ready agreed on a phased re­fur­bish­ment strat­e­gy.

“The project was to be ex­e­cut­ed on a phased ba­sis through eTeck as own­er and UDe­COTT as project man­ag­er. Tech­ni­cal con­sul­tants had al­ready been en­gaged, and the pro­cure­ment process had com­menced,” he stat­ed.

Mitchell ar­gued that the ap­par­ent lack of progress re­flects deep­er gov­er­nance is­sues.

“The stalling of the Trinidad Hilton re­fur­bish­ment project is both un­sur­pris­ing and re­gret­table. It shows a lack of strate­gic di­rec­tion and ev­i­dences a fail­ure to un­der­stand the crit­i­cal role that di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in the tourism sec­tor plays,” he said.

He added that the sit­u­a­tion rais­es con­cerns about the State’s broad­er eco­nom­ic plan­ning.

“The UNC claimed to have all the an­swers, but we now know they nev­er even un­der­stood ba­sic fun­da­men­tals about the dif­fer­ent sec­tors of our econ­o­my.”

Amid the po­lit­i­cal back-and-forth, the Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TIATT) is urg­ing a more mea­sured ap­proach.

TIATT pres­i­dent Lisa Shandilya down­played the im­me­di­a­cy of the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing that up­grades are a rou­tine part of in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel op­er­a­tions.

“In­ven­to­ry up­grades are a reg­u­lar op­er­a­tional com­po­nent of the Hilton-eTeck part­ner­ship,” she said af­ter re­view­ing the re­port.

“These mat­ters are best han­dled through joint in­ter­nal di­a­logue.”