Business
Haiti rising from the ashes – Construction of hotels
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is mulling building its own hotel on land it quietly purchased for US$10.5 million several months after the earthquake. The money came from donations raised by national Red Cross agencies for quake recovery, causing some to wonder if the money would be better used to house displaced people rather than aid workers.
The Red Cross has said little about the project since it was reported in recent weeks, saying only that it is under consideration.
Many people in Haiti welcome the new hotels just as they do any new investments that will bring jobs to a country where more than half the adult population is unemployed or underemployed and survive on less than US$2 a day. But some say Haiti should first care for the 500,000 people still living in makeshift camps.
“It’s nice to build hotels to bring tourists but first you need to think of your citizens,” said Ben Etienne, a 36-year-old resident of a hilly encampment in Peguyville that fills with mud during Haiti’s rainy season. “I don’t have a problem if the tourists come but the money needs to come into the country for the people.”
Tardieu said the new hotels will help more people get out of the camps by giving them jobs to pay for rent on homes being rehabilitated by government and nonprofit organizations.
He noted that 600 people have been employed in the Royal Oasis’ construction and that another 250 to 300 full-time jobs will be created after it opens.
“There need to be Haitian women and men who dare to invest,” he said, “who dare to have a vision of modernity for their country and do not cave in to the cliche that Haiti is only a country where efforts have to be geared toward short-term relief humanitarian work.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
