Influx of visitors: Govt eyeing 2000 additional hotel rooms by 2025

…new 7-floor hotel to be completed this month

In keeping with Guyana’s push to increase the number of hotel rooms that can accommodate visitors to the country, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has been intent on creating an enabling environment for new hotels. It is an initiative the Government expects will add 2000 hotel rooms over the next two years.

This is according to Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, who recently said that major hotel brands such as the Marriott and Best Western are on track to finish building their 150 and 101-room hotels, respectively.
“We have been proactively preparing for this influx of visitors and as we move around Guyana, you will notice a lot of construction activities, some of which is associated with the hospitality sector.”
“Two major hotels under the Marriott and the Best Western brands are reportedly on track for completion by the end of 2024. By the end of 2025, we would have added up to 2000 quality rooms to rooms stock,” Walrond further said.
This comes even as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently screened and exempted developers constructing a seven-story hotel on Sheriff Street, from submitting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), based on its assessment that the project will not significantly affect the environment.
The family-owned Gonsalves hotel, which the developers say will be completed by the end of April, will feature 40 rooms. According to the project summary, construction on the hotel started in 2021 and an estimated capital investment of $300 million was required for the project.
Meanwhile, other brand-name hotels are springing up all over Guyana, with the sod turned last year for the AC Marriott hotel in Ogle and the Sheraton Hotel in Providence that will together add over 300 rooms to Guyana’s hospitality industry.
In June of 2022, the Marriott International, in collaboration with H-Towers Incorporated and other international partners, signed an agreement that will bring the Sheraton Hotels & Resorts brand to Georgetown, Guyana, by 2025.
The agreement is between Marriott, H-Towers (a Guyanese-owned company), and its US-based partners, The Triwest Financial Group Inc and Black Pearl Holding Co. The project is expected to include a 200-room Sheraton Hotel and 224 residences, marking the brand´s debut in the market.
The project includes a residential component, and 224 residences will be housed in the second tower, connecting with the hotel via a sky bridge. Construction for the two towers is slated to begin at the end of the year.
Then there is the AC Marriott Hotel, which will be situated on 2.61 acres of land 2.5km south of the Atlantic Ocean and 0.5km east of the Eugene F Correia Airport. The project is being developed by Trinuyana Investments.
Trinuyana plans extensive landscaping and other infrastructural developments in the project. The project summary further states that the hotel will be five storeys tall, with 150 rooms. Retail stores are among the hotel’s planned features, as well as a courtyard. There will also be paved parking lots with 114 parking spaces, drive aisles and site roads.
It has already been said that over the next few years, Guyana will see the construction of at least eight hotels. Last year, the sod was turned for a US$15 million boutique hotel under the Aiden brand to be constructed in the heart of Georgetown. The hotel, which would feature 101 “smart rooms”, is being constructed as part of the Best Western Hotel and Resorts franchise.
Globally recognised hotel brands like the Hyatt, Hilton, and Radisson Hotels have also expressed an interest in investing in Guyana. In 2020, the Government of Guyana, through the Tourism and Commerce Ministry and the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with investors for a US$90 million Hilton Hotel to be constructed at McDoom, Greater Georgetown.
Given Guyana’s growing demand for accommodation for visitors, the Government of Guyana, through its GO-Invest office, had launched an Expression of Interest (EoI) in 2021 for hotel developers. (G3)