Intimate group wants break like Sandals’

Saying that she does not want to see Barbados become a state of two Barbadoses, Intimate Hotels of Barbados chairman Renee Coppin said yesterday her group should benefit from the same concessions the Government is giving Sandals Resort.
Intimate Hotels’ position is coming after another tourism umbrella entity, the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association, made a similar cry for a level playing field in light of the concessions to Sandals.
At a Press briefing at the Island Inn hotel yesterday, Coppin said theirs was not a separate initiative but an effort to give a voice to those who were not represented by the BHTA.
She said Intimate Barbados did not have anything against the Jamaican-based, internationally acclaimed Sandal Resorts being here. The chain’s desire to invest in Barbados was “a prudent one”, but the concessions to it were “lavish”.
Coppin said given that the Intimate group had “held strain” in face of economic challenges, she was “astonished that such lavish concessions can be provided seemingly without full consideration given to the impact that [they] would have on other players in the market and the further dimunition of our already small hotel sector . . .”.