The government of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) will be spending US$43.4 million to construct two five-star amenities hotels in Diamond and Mount Wynne.

The construction of these hotels would begin in the first quarter of the ongoing year only. Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves, who made the announcement, noted that construction has already been started at one of the hotels, The Holiday Inn Express at Diamond.

He explained that the hotel’s civil works, drainage, and roads were already completed in the previous year.  In terms of the other hotel, The Marriot Resort in Mt. Wynne, the constriction of the civil works was to be started by 2021, but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it was put on halt. 

According to the Finance Minister, “The construction of hotel building will begin in the first quarter only. The Holiday Inn Express will not merely serve as an airport and business hotel or as a venue for visiting athletes to utilise our world-class track. But, it will also serve as a significant teaching institution, given its across-the-street proximity to the Hospitality Training Institute at Diamond.”

Loan taken out to construct the hotels

It has been reported that the room capacity of both resorts will stand at 342. 

Gonsalves explained that the incumbent administration took a soft loan of US$50 million from the government of Taiwan for the construction of hotels, as the original cost of the resort designs were prohibitive, especially in terms of post-pandemic construction cost.   

As such, the government urged that the project should be redesigned to lower its costs. That redesign, in turn, was delayed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic & also the inability of our international architects to visit the site.

According to Gonsalves, “those issues are being resolved now, and the construction will begin soon”. 

The finance minister highlighted the significance of these 5-star resorts, noting it will provide a boost to the tourism sector of St Vincent & the Grenadines but will also assist the island’s government in attracting more private investors.