Advertisement 87
Advertisement 211
Bojan Kumer, Marriott International’s vice president for hotel development -- Caribbean and Latin America, speaks at the signing ceremony at the Mt. Wynne, on Tuesday. (Photo: Discover SVG/Facebook)
Bojan Kumer, Marriott International’s vice president for hotel development — Caribbean and Latin America, speaks at the signing ceremony at the Mt. Wynne, on Tuesday. (Photo: Discover SVG/Facebook)
Advertisement 219

A senior official of Marriott International says that St. Vincent is “one of the most beautiful and unique Caribbean islands” and the state-owned hotel that the company will manage at Mt Wynne is an important project for the country.

Bojan Kumer, Marriott International’s vice president for hotel development — Caribbean and Latin America, told a signing ceremony at the Mt Wynne, on Tuesday, that the St. Vincent Marriot will be the “the first internationally-branded, first class hotel on the mainland”.

The government has borrowed US$50 million to build the 250-room hotel, construction of which is expected to begin this year and continue through 2022.

Marriott will manage the hotel under their brand name and Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves told the ceremony that the management contract is “something in which they are coming in to lend us their experience, to lend their talent, to lend their expertise to the running of the facility”.

Kumer said:

Advertisement 271

“We are very excited about this project and about our partnership with the government of St. Vincent via the National Properties Ltd.”

He noted that the hotel will also have several restaurants, bars, swimming pools, tennis courts and first class meeting facilities.

“This hotel should set, actually, the new standard for all future developments in St. Vincent and our goal is to be mindful of the sustainability and the opportunity to obtain the LEED certification upon the completion of this project.”

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification provides independent verification of a building or neighbourhood’s green features, allowing for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of resource-efficient, high-performing, healthy, cost-effective buildings.

Kumer said SVG, with its natural beautify, is the perfect place for a new Marriott and a great new location to offer to their 140 million Bonvoy loyalty reward members.

“When this hotel opens, we will operate in more than 140 countries in the world and we will employ approximately one million employees in all of our franchised and managed properties,” he said.

“This hotel will employ approximately 250 to 300 employees and these employees will actually have the opportunity to work for the largest hotel chain in the world and will have a tremendous opportunity to grow their professional careers and travel the world.

“We are looking forward to see this hotel open its doors and welcome the first guest in a couple of years,” Kumer said.

Mt Wynne hotel site
The site at Mt Wynne, where the hotel will be built. (Photo: Discover SVG/Facebook)

Meanwhile, addressing the ceremony, Minister of Tourism, Sport and Culture Cecil McKie spoke highly of the partnership between Marriott and his government.

“What collaboration! What a marriage! St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Marriott. Put your hands together for that marriage,” McKie said.

He said the arrangement will add significantly to what the SVG can achieve in tourism, sports and culture and that he was happy that the country could tick another box as it relates to the development of its tourism industry. 

The Marriott is coming to SVG at a time when the government is positioning the country as an important player in the tourism industry in the region, the tourism minister said.

“Our recent hosting of the sustainable tourism conference has allowed us to lay out our case to fast track our development. This afternoon gives us another opportunity to do so.”

He spoke of the Argyle International Airport, which opened in February 2017.

Ces Mckie
Minister of Tourism, Cecil “Ces” McKie at the event. (Photo: Discover SVG/Facebook)

“We have said, ‘Build it and they will come.’ The Argyle International Airport was built, the airlines are coming and so are the rooms.”

He said that over the past four to five years, SVG has recorded consistent growth in visitor arrival figures.

Year-on-year air arrivals have increased by 5.8%, 3.9%, 4.4 % and by 6.7% for the first seven months of 2019.     

By yacht, the year-on-year increases are 3%, 1%, 8%, 11%, and by 7.5% for the first seven months of 2019.

For the cruise sector, the figures are 6%, 21%, 75%, 25%, and 6.4% for the first seven months of 2019.

McKie said that annually, SVG welcomes just over 360,000 visitors.

“We have worked hard to realise these numbers. Discussions, negotiations, presentations, engaging our diaspora, road shows, conference and events and increasing our visibility and intensifying our presence in the market place so that collectively we are able to yield these positive results,” the tourism minister said.

“The construction and presence of a Marriott in St. Vincent and the Grenadines will certainly add significant value to each and all of the processes I just identified and would cater to providing an even greater attraction to the destination while providing a solution to the ever growing demand for room stock…

“St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we are wise for attracting the Marriott to our shore. The Marriott has made an excellent choice in coming to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We’ll both be better placed for embracing each other along this journey,” he said.

7 replies on “Mt Wynne Marriott important for SVG — hotel official”

  1. It’s an excellent idea, but I have some reservations because I see things going the same way like the airport, where Cubans were brought in to move dirt while Vincentians just looked on.
    Tourists in busses and vans travelling on the Leeward side of the island may now have some where to go empty their bowels instead of going in the bushes.

    1. What the heck Skeck, their is a vast difference. The Cubans were paid about US$300,000 a month to work on a three year project which took nine years. They were paid for nine years?

      The question is, did the Venezuelans pay the Cubans wage bill as promised by Chavez, or did someone get it under the table instead? There is still much to be answered on this subject, unfortunately he is brown bread. We know he was a Marxist monster but he did tend to keep his word. So what went wrong, only a full explanation will be accepted, perhaps even then still rejected.

  2. What is the norm in the hotel industry, who normally owns the real estate?
    Would the franchise agreement embrace a return on investment to recoup the initial capital cost?
    How would and how often would the Government provide accounts to the Vincentian public?
    Would there be a corporate boards of Vincentian citizens and what is the process to selecting the board members?

  3. Most of what the people involved in this (government and private sector) say about this project is just PR build-up. However, the fact that an arrangement has been made with Marriott is great! I hope the hotel will be built with Marriott in-charge. If our government has full control it will be poorly-thought-out garbage!

    Mostly I wonder what Marriott has planned. We have so many empty rooms here on the mainland where tourists do not really want to go, how are they going to change that? I know for a fact that very many tourist agencies overseas will not promote going to the SVG Mainland BECAUSE IT IS DEEMED UNSAFE! Too many tourists have been raped, robed and murdered, not to mention harrassed by beggars. Certain tour ships will not even stop here for that reason. Does Marriott project this will change or will this project be a sort of “tourist prison” where tourists will be encouraged not to go off the grounds?
    Maybe the government has told Marriott that they are going to change our economic policy to instead provide opportunity for the people instead of just opportunity for the government. If that is the case, even that may take years before the mass crime and poverty gets significantly reduced.

  4. What are we putting in place in terms of attraction, we have nothing to attract the tourists to svg. St Lucia has club med, buccament bay is closed. Having a hotel and no tourist is digging a deeper hole in debt, than we are right now. Who is the genius making all these wrong decisions. I would hate to see another failed project like the buccament bay.

  5. “to lend us their experience, to lend their talent, to lend their expertise”

    They are not lending us anything, for them to lend to us we would have to give back. They are selling or hiring us their experience, their talent, their expertise.

    These are professionals in what they do, we as hotel owners are far from being professional, our treatment of the lessor of the Cobblestone Inn until public opinion made him mess his underwear proved that.

Comments closed.