The number of hotels under Barceló Crestline Corp. management can grow threefold following the purchase of all shares of class A
common stock of John Q. Hammons Hotels for $13 per share, which has a total value of about $84 million.
Barceló Crestline, the parent company of Crestline Hotels & Resorts, is buying the publicly owned part of JQH Hotels, which is 24 percent of the company. Mr. John Q. Hammons owns the other 76 percent and he will participate in the acquiring company by exchanging all of his other equity interest in JQH Hotels for preferred equity in the acquiring company.
The government and the private sector in the Dominican Republic are planning to pour over $36 million into the advance of tourism in the Samana area, some 200 miles northwest of Santo Domingo, in a project that will also cover the zones of Las Galeras and Las Terrenas.
The tourist project is part of a much bigger $275 million program that will home in on the building and streamlining of all infrastructure in the country´s premier travel destinations. The whole plan is expected to come to an end in the summer of 2007.
Brazilian airline VARIG, marred in financial dire straits for quite some time, is eying the recently enacted Bankruptcy Act, that was signed into law by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last week, as the lifeline that could pull the company out of heavy indebtedness.
With a $1.8 billion debt in tow –most of the money is owed to public companies- VARIG has been scrambling for over two years now to work its way out of a crisis that has dragged the carrier to the brink of complete shutdown time and again.
The economy in St. Kitts and Nevis expanded nearly four percent in 2004, according to the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) which said that the expansion of the real GDP in St. Kitts and Nevis can be attributed to strong performances in tourism, transportation and communication.
Tourism was the main driving force, supported by construction and to a lesser extent financial services, manufacturing and agriculture. These developments occurred within the context of only slightly higher inflation levels, as the effects of rising oil prices appeared to have been limited, the CDB said in a statement.
Foreign investment in Costa Rica was tabbed at $596,800,000 in 2004, up nearly 4 percent from the previous year, in a clear-cut sign of international confidence in that Central American nation, the Presidency’s Economic Council reported this week.
The note indicates that inflows of foreign cash account for a considerable chunk of the country’s effort to reverse a severe trade balance shortfall.
The Virgin Islands Port Authority (VIPA) has decided to introduce what it calls "cruising fees" for luxury yachts and "harbor fees" for tour boats, while at the same time, increasing existing marine fees.
An agency source told Caribbean Net News VIPA has no choice but to increase revenues in an effort to regain financial stability and strength following the near-crippling losses of the last three years. It lost 4.5 million dollars for Fiscal Year 2004, for a total of at least $13.5 million during the last three years.