The Chief Executive Officer of Cara Hotels, Paul Stephenson has described as "unfortunate" a reaction by the owner of the Pegasus Hotel, Robert Badal, to the planned construction of a Marriott-branded hotel in Guyana.

While Mr. Stephenson said he was unaware of the deal with Marriott, he said that the presence of any internationally-flagged hotel would be good for the country.

"If they've done their due-diligence and they feel that Guyana is a destination that they would like to open an international flag and have a presence here, overall that would give the international traveller, be it business or tourist persons, a positive image of Guyana that we have international endorsement by a major company," he told Demerara Waves.

Operating hotels in Guyana and in Trinidad and Tobago altogether for more than 20 years, the Cara CEO urged Guyanese hoteliers to aggressively market their properties to confront competition from bigger international hotels.

"They need to get more proactive in their marketing, they need to get more proactive in increasing their standards of operation to compete," said Stephenson.

 

Similar sentiments were expressed in a statement by the National Industrial & Commercial Investments Ltd (NICIL), government's holding company for shares generally.

 

"To those detractors from the progress, Government suggests they instead focus on improving their product rather than criticizing new competing investments that will improve the sector and lead to an expansion of its tourism and hospitality sector," said NICIL in a statement.

In the face of Mr. Badal's prediction that the hotel industry could collapse with the coming into being of the 160-room hotel in 2013 because of  too few guests and a large number of rooms, Mr. Stephenson noted that the number of overseas-based Guyanese visitors and business-tourists was growing steadily.

"The Guyana performance versus the region-- we're actually showing a growth so unquestionably over the next five to ten years, there will be growth opportunities in Guyana for an increase in the demand for hotel rooms," he said.

President Bharrat Jagdeo has already lashed out at Mr. Badal who bought the Pegasus last year and announced plans to invest at least U$3 million to upgrade the property to a five-star hotel, saying that the businessman was afraid of competition.

“If I were him, I’ll probably  try to kill every other effort for any other hotel in the country to be built., Because it means I can continue to have a monopoly, charge high rates and not refurbish and give the frankly speaking, crappy service, so many foreigners have complained about” said the Guyanese leader.

Mr. Jagdeo said government's investment of US$20 million in the just over US$50 million in a public-private partnership was necessary because of the private sector's "narrow outlook."

 

NICIL denied Mr. Badal's claims that the Georgetown Marriott hotel and entertainment complex would be benefiting from “relaxed rules of operations” or special concessions outside of the fiscal regime that is currently in the law and promoted by the Guyana Office for Investment. 

 

"If Guyana is going to continue to expand its tourism sector, it needs branded hotels and more airlines," said NICIL

 

In an apparent reaction to Mr. Badal's concerns about "poor taxpayers' money" being invested in Marriott and the apparent lack of transparency and good governance, NICIL lashed back saying that "it is also well known that Mr. Badal’s track record in terms of corporate governance is questionable at best.

 

"People would remember how evasive and defensive Mr. Badal became when probing questions were raised about the related party transactions between Guyana Stockfeeds Inc. and Mr. Badal’s related companies," said the government holding company.

 

The hotel’s state-of-the-art architectural and interior design concept will be created by the firm of Urbahn Architects (New York). 

 

The Georgetown Marriott Hotel is on track to receive LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is on track to be Marriott’s first LEED hotel in the Caribbean & Latin America.  It will operate under a management agreement with Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI).