The Forum Hotel’s brief run at Port Henderson came to an end as financial challenges mounted, driven by weak guest turnout and a sharp drop in advance bookings for the 1975 season. Hotel executives pointed to the uncertain economic climate, including global conditions affecting travel, as a major factor influencing the decision to cease operations just over a year after the property opened.

Published Wednesday, January 29, 1975

Poor business closes $4-m Forum Hotel

Gleaner Business Reporter

THE Forum Hotel, at Port Henderson, St Catherine, has been closed after just over a year’s operation.
Poor business and economic uncertainty are given as the reasons for the closure of the hotel.
A statement issued by the board of directors of the owning company, Portmore Development Company, a member of the Matalon Group, announced that the hotel was “discontinuing operations” as from yesterday.
“This decision was taken by the owning company in concurrence with the management company, due to heavy cancellations of 1975 high-season bookings, following low occupancies for 1974, and continuing uncertainty in the economic situation for the remainder of 1975,” the company statement said.
Opened in December 1973, at the start of the winter tourist season, the Forum was being operated on a management contract by Inter-Continental Hotels, the big American chain. Tourist industry circles hailed it as Kingston’s “first complete resort hotel” because of its seafront setting and its many entertainment facilities.
Cost $4m
Built at a reported cost of $4,000,000, it had 200 guest rooms and 75 holiday cottages. Cocktail lounges added to its facilities, and it enjoyed some fame as an after-dark resort for Kingstonians.
At the time of its opening, Jamaica and the world were facing the escalation in oil prices, and fears were expressed then that the oil crisis could have an adverse effect on international holiday travel.
A number of Jamaicans, many of them recruited from overseas as experts in the hotel industry, had been engaged at the Forum, which had also begun to enjoy a vogue as a weekend and holiday resort for Jamaicans. Inter-Continental Hotels also operates the Rose Hall Inter-Continental Hotel in Montego Bay, which was opened last December. A third hotel in Jamaica, to be run by the chain, is being built in Ocho Rios.
What is to happen to the Forum, as a building, has not yet been decided. The owning company’s statement issued last night said: “The directors are considering the future of the property, but it would be premature to disclose any detail at this stage.”
Creditors should forward updated statements to the hotel, the statement added.

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