Karisma expands in Ja
TOURISM MINISTER Edmund Bartlett and Prime Minister Andrew Holness last Friday joined executives of Mexico-based Karisma Hotels and Resorts to break ground for a US$1-billion, 4,800room resort property in Llandovery, St Ann.
But it all began in March 2010 when Bartlett and Chairman of the Jamaica Tourist Board, John Lynch, met board members of Touristik Union International (TUI) Group, who were in partnership with Karisma during their scouting expedition for prospective investment areas in the Caribbean. At that initial meeting, talks centred around Karisma’s interests in investing in Jamaica.
TUI is the world’s leading tourism group, comprising tour operators, some 1,600 travel agencies and leading online portals, six airlines, 150 aircraft, 400 hotels, and 18 cruise liners in all major holiday destinations worldwide, basically covering the entire tourism value chain under one roof.
“The executives from Karisma later came and held further discussions with us, following which their board of directors also held their first meeting at Round Hill and they outlined their plans to expand in the Jamaican market. Following the JLP’s loss of the 2011 election, the talks continued under the Portia Simpson
Miller administration and the land was purchased in Llandovery (St Ann) for the resort,” Bartlett explains.
SECURE INVESTMENT
Addressing the ground-breaking ceremony, Prime Minister Holness assured the developers of the proposed Sugarcane Bay Resort that their investment is secure from a legal and financial perspective, given Jamaica’s track record of both its legal framework and the economic policy which have withstood many challenges.
“Fiscal discipline is now an established policy in Jamaica, regardless of who forms the Government. You can rest assured that your investment here will not be at the mercy of a whimsical tax policy or other forms of regulations that could deplete or ruin your business,” Holness said.
The project stalled, but when Bartlett was named tourism minister in 2016, he reopened the discussions, thus bringing the investors back on track as one of the ministry’s ‘shovel-ready’ projects. He hails this as the largest investment ever seen in the sector, noting that construction will begin this year.
The minister said there were several hurdles to the present, but he is looking forward to the series of hotels and that these 4,800 rooms will keep Jamaica on track to securing 15,000 rooms by 2021. The hotels will be under the Sugarcane Bay Resorts design covering several resort brands, including Nikelodian, Generations, El Dorado, Azul and Sensatori.
‘Fiscal discipline is now an established policy in Jamaica, regardless of who forms the Government. You can rest assured that your investment here will not be at the mercy of a whimsical tax policy or other forms of regulations that could deplete or ruin your business.’