An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre says that it con­tin­ues to ac­cept all ma­jor forms of cur­ren­cy through deb­it and cred­it cards, in­clud­ing TTD.

The ho­tel was re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tion on whether it has de­cid­ed to go cash­less.

“Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­ter con­tin­ues to look for in­no­v­a­tive ways to ad­dress the evolv­ing needs of our guests, own­ers, and team mem­bers. The ho­tel ac­cepts all ma­jor forms of cur­ren­cy through deb­it and cred­it cards, in­clud­ing TTD, mak­ing it easy for guests to com­plete trans­ac­tions, re­gard­less of their cur­ren­cy pref­er­ence,” the ho­tel de­tailed. It de­clined to re­spond to fur­ther ques­tions.

The Guardian Me­dia fur­ther en­quired and found out that the ho­tel has been op­er­at­ing on a most­ly cash­less ba­sis for four years, as the mea­sure was in­tro­duced fol­low­ing the on­set of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

A vis­i­tor to Hilton’s bar yes­ter­day was greet­ed by a sign that states “All food and bev­er­age ser­vices are cash­less. We do not ac­cept Ap­ple Pay. Pay­ment meth­ods ac­cept­ed cred­it card, deb­it card, room and room charges."

An em­ploy­ee of the ho­tel said the cash­less pol­i­cy is on­ly re­laxed for the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, when for­eign and TT-dol­lar ban­knotes are ac­cept­ed.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Radis­son Ho­tel, Kapok Ho­tel, and Crews Inn Ho­tel, em­ploy­ees said the ho­tels still ac­cept cash, deb­it, and cred­it cards. The em­ploy­ees could not say if there were plans in the fu­ture to go cash­less.

Court­yard by Mar­riott Port of Spain con­firmed it has gone cash­less as of Sep­tem­ber 12.

On Sat­ur­day, Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad post­ed a mes­sage on Face­book stat­ing that ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 1, it would be ac­cept­ing all ma­jor cred­it cards and on­ly US dol­lars, British pound ster­ling, and eu­ros.

Af­ter crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia, how­ev­er, it quick­ly re­tract­ed the de­ci­sion, say­ing an er­ror was made in re­leas­ing the state­ment.

On Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert post­ed on his X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) ac­count, “As cor­po­ra­tion sole, the MOF has no over­sight role over the op­er­a­tions of the Hy­att but will in­ves­ti­gate the cur­ren­cy as­pect of the mat­ter.”

Ude­cott, which owns Hy­att Re­gency on be­half of the state, al­so re­spond­ed to the post, say­ing the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad must ac­cept TT dol­lars as pay­ment for goods and ser­vices.

Speak­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as he wrapped up the de­bate on the 2025 Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill, Im­bert said, "Is a good thing that the Hy­att re­scind­ed that fool­ish de­ci­sion to tell cit­i­zens of this coun­try that they’re no longer ac­cept­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lars. Fool­ish­ness!

“The good thing, is they moved fast and they got rid of it.”

He al­so re­ject­ed claims that the de­ci­sion would have af­fect­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s plans to go “cash­less.”