Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Hilton World­wide has agreed to a three-month ex­ten­sion for the con­tin­ued use of its brand in Port-of-Spain while dis­cus­sions on the ho­tel’s fu­ture with the Gov­ern­ment-owned en­ti­ty re­main on­go­ing.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk un­der­stands that a fi­nal de­ci­sion on whether the Hilton brand would re­main af­fixed to the ho­tel will be made when the lat­est ne­go­ti­a­tions con­clude in Ju­ly.

In an in­ter­nal memo emailed to Hilton Trinidad ex­ec­u­tives, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Olivi­er Mau­maire con­firmed: “A three-month ex­ten­sion has been agreed, ef­fec­tive April 16th.”

He added that dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment re­main on­go­ing, promis­ing to “con­tin­ue to pro­vide up­dates as ap­pro­pri­ate.”

The memo pro­vides the first con­fir­ma­tion that the arrange­ment has been ex­tend­ed again, fol­low­ing ear­li­er un­cer­tain­ty over whether the in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel brand would re­main in Trinidad.

The Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre is owned by the State through Evolv­ing Tec­Knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Co. Ltd (e Teck) and op­er­at­ed un­der a man­age­ment agree­ment with Hilton dat­ing back to 2003. That agree­ment ex­pired in 2023 and had pre­vi­ous­ly been ex­tend­ed to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk ex­clu­sive­ly re­port­ed last month that Hilton was con­sid­er­ing with­draw­ing its brand, cit­ing is­sues in­clud­ing de­layed up­grades, the prop­er­ty’s con­di­tion, and fi­nan­cial per­for­mance.

At the time of the news re­port, no book­ings could be made be­yond April 17. How­ev­er, the sys­tem has since been re­opened with book­ings now avail­able over the com­ing months.

Since then, e Teck changed min­istries and now falls un­der the purview of Sad­dam Ho­sein, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries fol­low­ing ten­sions be­tween the com­pa­ny’s chair Susil­la Ramkissoon-Mark and for­mer line Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma “Ka­ma” Ma­haraj.

It was re­port­ed that Ramkissoon-Mark took is­sue, among oth­ers, with the state en­ter­prise be­ing di­rect­ed to sign off on a Ho­tel Man­age­ment Agree­ment with Hilton last No­vem­ber with­out writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion from the line min­istry that the req­ui­site funds would be re­leased to sup­port the project’s im­ple­men­ta­tion, as it could po­ten­tial­ly ex­pose the com­pa­ny’s di­rec­tors and of­fi­cers to claims of mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion, breach of fidu­cia­ry du­ty and fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety.

Re­fur­bish­ment works- to the sum of $400 mil­lion- are need­ed to up­grade the ho­tel, but there is no pro­vi­sion in the 2025 bud­get for the in­vest­ment.

An email sent to e Teck this week went un­ac­knowl­edged.

Oth­er Hilton-brand­ed projects

The un­cer­tain­ty over the State-owned Port-of-Spain ho­tel comes as oth­er Hilton-brand­ed projects move ahead in T&T.

On Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar turned the sod for a sep­a­rate Hilton Gar­den Inn Ho­tel and Con­ven­tion Cen­tre at South Park, San Fer­nan­do. That project is be­ing de­vel­oped by Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Lim­it­ed and is not the same prop­er­ty as the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.

Hilton has al­so an­nounced plans for Hilton Gar­den Inn Trinidad Air­port, Hamp­ton by Hilton Trinidad Air­port and Hilton Gar­den Inn San Fer­nan­do South Park as well as Ele­phant Tree Re­sort and Vil­las To­ba­go, Ta­pes­try Col­lec­tion by Hilton, a 21-acre beach­front re­sort ex­pect­ed to open in 2028.

Union re­quests meet­ing

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU), which rep­re­sents em­ploy­ees at the ho­tel, wrote to man­age­ment on April 20 re­quest­ing an ur­gent meet­ing.

In its let­ter, it said, “The Union writes to for­mal­ly re­quest an ur­gent meet­ing with Man­age­ment to dis­cuss mat­ters aris­ing out of the re­cent­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed three (3) month ex­ten­sion, as well as the on­go­ing dis­course in­volv­ing the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The CWU said it was seek­ing clar­i­ty on the di­rec­tion of dis­cus­sions and the im­pli­ca­tions for work­ers.

“It is both pru­dent and nec­es­sary to en­gage in di­a­logue at this junc­ture to en­sure that em­ploy­ees are not left in a state of un­cer­tain­ty and that their in­ter­ests are ad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ed dur­ing this crit­i­cal pe­ri­od.”

The union al­so re­quest­ed dis­cus­sions on an­oth­er mat­ter af­fect­ing work­ers.

“The Union wish­es to place on the agen­da for dis­cus­sion the mat­ter of House Tronc.”

House Tronc is a pooled sys­tem of ser­vice charges col­lect­ed by the ho­tel and dis­trib­uted among staff, typ­i­cal­ly those in­volved in di­rect guest ser­vices.

It forms part of work­ers’ earn­ings and is of­ten a point of ne­go­ti­a­tion be­tween man­age­ment and unions, par­tic­u­lar­ly around how funds are cal­cu­lat­ed, al­lo­cat­ed and paid.

Hilton Man­age­ment re­spond­ed on April 21 in a let­ter from Di­rec­tor of Hu­man Re­sources Stacey-Ann Sylvester.

“The Ho­tel re­it­er­ates that it has al­ready shared all in­for­ma­tion that is present­ly avail­able.”

It said a meet­ing on the ex­ten­sion and on­go­ing dis­cus­sions would not be pro­duc­tive at this stage.

The ho­tel con­firmed that dis­cus­sions were still on­go­ing.

How­ev­er, man­age­ment said it was will­ing to meet with the CWU re­gard­ing the House Tronc is­sue.

When con­tact­ed, the union’s pres­i­dent, Joanne Ogeer, said work­ers were con­cerned about the lack of in­for­ma­tion.

“The Union and work­ers are of the be­lief that Man­age­ment is not be­ing forth­com­ing and is aware of what is go­ing on and it fur­ther erodes trust and ex­ac­er­bates un­cer­tain­ty with thoughts of be­ing on the bread­line.”