BAS­SETERRE-A Dubai de­vel­op­er is us­ing St Kitts and Nevis's eco­nom­ic cit­i­zen­ship pro­gramme to fi­nance its new ul­tra-lux­u­ry ho­tel de­vel­op­ment. Range De­vel­op­ments, an af­fil­i­ate of Hy­att Ho­tels Cor­po­ra­tion and Ki­awah Part­ners, have signed an agree­ment with the St Kitts and Nevis gov­ern­ment to build and op­er­ate a Park Hy­att ho­tel at Christophe Har­bour.

The deal is con­tin­gent up­on fi­nal fi­nanc­ing and the project is ex­pect­ed to be fi­nanced un­der the St Kitts and Nevis Cit­i­zen­ship by In­vest­ment Pro­gram, where­by in­vestors who pur­chase US$400,000 in the ho­tel could find them­selves the re­cip­i­ents of a new St Kitts and Nevis pass­ports.

The deal was an­nounced ear­li­er this week dur­ing a press con­fer­ence held at Park Hy­att in Dubai and where Kit­tit­ian of­fi­cials in­clud­ing prime min­is­ter Dr Den­zil Dou­glas and min­is­ter of tourism Ricky Sker­ritt, were in at­ten­dance. In out­lin­ing the deal, de­vel­op­ers ex­plained that own­er­ship of an in­vest­ment share (lim­it­ed part­ner­ship in­ter­est) in the ho­tel project would grant in­vestors the right to be­come el­i­gi­ble for cit­i­zen­ship of St Kitts and Nevis.

The key ad­van­tages of this, as out­lined by the de­vel­op­ers, would be visa-free trav­el ac­cess to 139 coun­tries across the world, in­clud­ing Unit­ed King­dom, Schen­gen Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, and most British Com­mon­wealth mem­ber coun­tries, es­pe­cial­ly Cana­da, France, Ger­many and Switzer­land; tax-free in­come and an ex­emp­tion from pay­ing tax­es on cap­i­tal gains, gifts, wealth and in­her­i­tance; dual cit­i­zen­ship for all na­tion­al­i­ties with­out re­nounc­ing the cit­i­zen­ship of one's home coun­try; cit­i­zen­ship for life with an un­lim­it­ed num­ber of el­i­gi­ble de­pen­dants passed down through gen­er­a­tions; and the abil­i­ty to ob­tain cit­i­zen­ship with­in 90 days with­out a res­i­den­cy re­quire­ment.

Dur­ing the launch, Prime Min­is­ter Dou­glas said: "We are ex­treme­ly pleased to wel­come the pres­ti­gious Park Hy­att brand and Range De­vel­op­ments to the is­land of St Kitts. "This project will fur­ther ad­vance our Gov­ern­ment's eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion of St. Kitts fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the sug­ar in­dus­try in 2005. When com­plet­ed, I am sure that guests of Park Hy­att St Kitts will find the very best in ameni­ties and the high­est stan­dards in ser­vice, sup­port fa­cil­i­ties and is­land ac­tiv­i­ties."

Set with­in the res­i­den­tial re­sort com­mu­ni­ty of Christophe Har­bour, which calls al­ready in­cludes a su­per yacht ma­ri­na, Tom Fazio golf course, and pri­vate beach club, the Park Hy­att St Kitts will en­com­pass 200 ho­tel rooms and 50 brand­ed res­i­den­tial con­do­mini­ums, that will be con­struct­ed in three phas­es. The first phase will be com­prised of 125 rooms and all the ameni­ties and sup­port fa­cil­i­ties to ser­vice the re­sort at full build-out.

The ameni­ties planned for the ho­tel in­clude mul­ti­ple din­ing venues, pri­vate beach ac­cess, pool, spa and meet­ing fa­cil­i­ties. Al­so present at the launch, Pat Mc­Cud­den, Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent, Hy­att Ho­tels & Re­sorts, re­marked: "Park Hy­att St Kitts will con­tin­ue our com­pa­ny's tra­di­tion of de­liv­er­ing an un­prece­dent­ed lev­el of lux­u­ry and un­ri­valled hos­pi­tal­i­ty ex­pe­ri­ence. Park Hy­att St Kitts will be de­signed to pro­vide an in­ti­mate, con­tem­po­rary re­sort en­vi­ron­ment, with touch­es of the lo­cal cul­ture-a per­fect sanc­tu­ary for our dis­cern­ing guests."

Mu­naf Ali, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Range De­vel­op­ments, al­so said: "We are pleased to launch a ma­jor de­vel­op­ment project on the beau­ti­ful is­land of St Kitts where in­vestors are of­fered a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty of cit­i­zen­ship through in­vest­ment. St Kitts is one of the most tran­quil lo­ca­tions in the Caribbean and in­vest­ing in the Park Hy­att ho­tel project will en­ti­tle you and your fam­i­ly to ap­ply for cit­i­zen­ship of St Kitts & Nevis. This op­por­tu­ni­ty pro­vides sec­ond cit­i­zen­ship to el­i­gi­ble in­di­vid­u­als in 90 days and opens visa-free trav­el to more than 139 coun­tries across the world."