Hiccups in resort growth
Published:Friday | November 18, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
THE DELAY in the roll out of new resorts centred around casino gambling has derailed growth targets of 50 per cent or 10,000 new rooms over a five-year period, announced by tourism industry planners as far back as 2008.
Instead, hotel-room count has improved by a mere 4.26 per cent in the past three years.
And while new projects are being touted to begin in 2012, they are not likely to be delivered for another two or more years after that, if the construction timetable holds.
According to data provided by the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) this week, new rooms added to Jamaica's total hotel room inventory totalled 1,136. However, the net effect was lower discounting for rooms closed during the period.
So total inventory rose from 19,972 at January 2009 to 20,823 at October 2010 for a net gain of 851 rooms. No rooms were added in 2011, JTB said.
Comparatively, for the preceding three-year period, January 2006 to December 2008, growth in new rooms amounted to 3,065 units.
Indeed, since that time, several hotels have ceased operation, including the former Breezes Montego Bay, a 124-room hotel and the 226-room Breezes Rio Bueno hotel in Trelawny, which was shuttered at April this year.
In 2009, room inventory increased by 436 rooms: Spanish Court Hotel entered the market with 112 rooms; Iberostar Grand Rose Hall accounted for 295; and Seawind Resorts, 29.
In 2010, 700 new rooms were added - 350 each at two Secrets Resorts.
Casino projects in the works include Celebration Jamaica, and the long-delayed Harmony Cove development, for which Jamaica is negotiating Chinese funding.
Celebration was announced as a 2,000-room, US$1.8-billion development to be spread across 65 acres of oceanfront land in Montego Bay. The site is adjacent to the incomplete Palmyra Resort & Spa, which was placed in receivership by its bankers over the summer.
The two projects have owners-investors in common.
Harmony Cove is billed as a US$2-billion 4,000/5,000-room project in Trelawny being executed as a public-private partnership with Tavistock Group.
Earlier in the summer, Dr Lorna Simmonds, executive director of state-owned Harmonisation Limited, said that based on ongoing negotiations, they are now looking to early 2012 for project start, two years beyond the last announced deadline.
The passage of casino regulations in October 2011 paves the way for the Casino Commission to begin processing applications for the granting of licences.
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said to qualify applicants must make an additional US$1-billion investment to improve room stock by 2,000.
Bartlett said an existing resort property has indicated it would add 3,000 rooms, a golf course, marine facilities and a convention centre, in order to qualify for a casino licence.
He did not name the hotel, but since then the Spanish-owned Grand Palladium in Hanover has said it intends to go after a casino licence and was in negotiation with an American outfit to partner on the investment. Grand Palladium is a member of the Fiesta Hotels group.
In October as well, Bartlett said 2,000 new rooms would be added to the island's room stock on four sites on the north-west coast of Jamaica will commence in the first half of next year. So far, he has not revealed the developers behind the planned resort expansion which, he said, includes construction of at least two new hotels.