Cur­tis Williams, To­ba­go chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, yes­ter­day de­scribed the de­ci­sion by the Gov­ern­ment to sell or lease the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort as an ex­cel­lent move.

He lament­ed that te ho­tel is in ter­ri­ble con­di­tion.

Giv­ing his thoughts on the bud­get, Williams said the fis­cal pack­age, and To­ba­go’s $2.5 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion, brought mixed feel­ings for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

But the sec­tor unan­i­mous­ly agreed the gov­ern­ment made the right de­ci­sion to re­pair Mag­dale­na or let a pri­vate op­er­a­tor take over, since the Gov­ern­ment “can’t run busi­ness­es prop­er­ly.”

Speak­ing on the CNC3 Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Williams said, “I’m hap­py that the Gov­ern­ment sees fit that it needs to spend some mon­ey to re­pair this place, bring it up to a three star or a four star lev­el, and then find some­one to op­er­ate it. We can­not op­er­ate it. Find some­one to op­er­ate it or just sell it. That was a great de­ci­sion by the Gov­ern­ment, be­cause it can­not run a fa­cil­i­ty like that.”

The Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, which is the largest ho­tel in To­ba­go with 178 rooms and 22 suites, has been up for sale since 2022.

It was put on mar­ket again in Ju­ly 2024.

Orig­i­nal­ly opened in 2000 as part of the Hilton chain, it closed in 2008 and re­opened un­der new man­age­ment in 2012.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s bud­get Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­vealed the gov­ern­ment has been seek­ing ei­ther a buy­er or an in­vestor to help re­vamp the ho­tel, in­clud­ing an out­right sale or man­age­ment by an in­ter­na­tion­al op­er­a­tor.

Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed $56.6 mil­lion for up­grades to main­tain its four-star rat­ing and im­prove com­pet­i­tive­ness while ex­plor­ing op­tions for leas­ing or sell­ing the prop­er­ty.

The sale process aims to at­tract ex­pe­ri­enced op­er­a­tors ca­pa­ble of repo­si­tion­ing the ho­tel for long-term suc­cess.

Williams said based on Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to run the ho­tel ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, it is bet­ter to let the spe­cial­ists take over.

“It was left in the hands of the gov­ern­ment for a cou­ple of years, but it is al­ways best to have a brand­ed name there car­ry­ing that prod­uct. The (ho­tel’s) en­vi­ron­ment is so nice, the seafront; the golf course. But on Tues­day I was there for a func­tion and I’m see­ing bro­ken tiles. I’m see­ing cor­ri­dors that when rain falling, there’s a pool of wa­ter, rust­ed fit­tings.”

William al­so feel it is time the Gov­ern­ment push to im­prove To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor. This in­cludes plans for new in­ter­na­tion­al flights, more brand­ed ho­tels.

He said this move shows hope for To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture, but stressed that all the key play­ers—like the Gov­ern­ment, the To­ba­go busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and tourism lead­ers—need to work to­geth­er.

“Tourism can’t be done in iso­la­tion,” Williams said.

In a gen­er­al re­sponse to the 2024-2025 na­tion­al bud­get pack­age, Williams wel­comed gov­ern­ment’s plans to set­tle VAT pay­ments, ei­ther by cash or bonds.

The bud­get al­so in­clud­ed a tax amnesty, which Williams de­scribed as a re­lief for busi­ness­es on the is­land that have been fac­ing fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties.

This, he said, will help busi­ness­es strug­gling to man­age their fi­nances.

But, he wor­ries To­ba­go’s al­lo­ca­tion will not be enough set­tle debts and fa­cil­i­tate the dire eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

“But we want to press for the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to look at the fund­ing of the THA to clear long stand­ing over­due bills. And I’m hope­ful, I’m hope­ful. I’m def­i­nite­ly hope­ful, the fi­nance min­is­ter, the Prime Min­is­ter, will lis­ten to us and re­al­ly bring some kind of hope.”

Still, he viewed the bud­get as a “50-50” deal. And while he ap­pre­ci­at­ed some of the ini­tia­tives, he said To­ba­go must pay off the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly debts be­fore sup­port­ing small busi­ness­es to save its dy­ing pri­vate sec­tor.