Hilton replaced as Wyndham returns to Kingston
Published:Friday | June 25, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Dionne Rose, Business Reporter
TWO YEARS after it changed ownership, the Hilton Kingston hotel is to undergo a name change, again. Delroy Howell, the new owner, has said he is advanced in plans to sever ties with Hilton World-wide, the current managers of the hotel, in favour of a manage-ment contract to bring back the Wyndham brand to the New Kingston property.
"We are going in a different direction (and) we have invited Wyndham back," Howell told the Financial Gleaner, about the plan to rebrand the hotel as of June 30.
Howell bought the 360-room hotel two years ago through his First Financial Caribbean, the parent company for Quik Cash Sun Money Transfer, for a reported J$3.5 billion, from previous owners Ron Kelly and Tobias Rowe.
Before that, an unconfirmed US$42 million was offered by unregistered financial entity, Cash Plus, which has started the process of acquiring property before the deal and the investment scheme itself collapsed.
The owner said he expected the Wyndham Group to be more forward-thinking and aggressive in its marketing and management of the property, which caters largely to the business traveller.
"It means for the hotel that we will see Brand Jamaica and the city of Kingston rise to being the number-one business-travel destination and the Wyndham, by being the largest hotel group, will bring the necessary tools, people, resources to Jamaica," Howell said.
He added he was looking forward to what he described as a great partnership.
The Wyndham Hotel Group, part of the Wyndham worldwide family of companies, operates some 7,090 hotels with 593,300 rooms in 65 countries. Here in Jamaica, the company, up to just over a year ago, managed the Wyndham Rose Hall Resort and Country Club in Montego Bay, which has since been taken over by Hilton. Wyndham were contract managers for the Kingston property for many years before it was also replaced there by Hilton.
The towering structure, initially the Sheraton, was among the first major hotels built in Kingston as the tourism product developed there more than three decades ago.
The new partnership, Howell expects, will give the hotel greater access to the tourist markets of North America and the rest of the world, as he pegs his hopes on Wyndham's brand recognition worldwide.
"We are confident that the partnership will be beneficial to our guests, staff, clients and to our shareholders," he said.