30409: re 30389 Labrom re Haitian Hilton hotel (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

from voyageslumierehaiti@gmail.com

The Haitian Hilton hotel project was abandoned when Aristide left in
2004, presumably because the investors felt that the situation was too
insecure to carry on.  But I for one, hope that they will restart the
project. They had not done much building, just mainly, from what I
heard, accommodation for the future workers building the hotel.  The
reason I hope they will build the hotel is that perhaps there won't be
quite so much bad press when we have an International Hotel here in
Haiti. In other countries such as Kenya and Jamaica where crime is
targeted at tourists they still don't have problems in their tourism
industry as they have many hotels from International chains. Whereas
here we only have Haitian families who have no International business
clout and therefore people can broadcast all over the world when there
is one murder, or one incident.  I understand that figures have been
documented of more than 6 times more crime in the DR and in Jamaica
and yet they have a thriving Tourism business.

However during Bob's absence I was pleased to meet Chris Blackwell, a
Jamaican entrepreneur who came specifically to visit Jacmel with the
idea of starting a flight between Jamaica and Jacmel. He told me
personally how special he thought Jacmel was and that his fellow
countrymen would be glad not to have to go through Miami and be
harrassed by the Americans. So this is good news.

Jacqui Labrom

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