The de­vel­op­er of the pro­posed Rocky Point ho­tel project, John Aboud, yes­ter­day of­fered to sell one or two shares in the de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny to To­ba­go or To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Aboud, who is the chair­man of Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels T&T Ltd, made the of­fer at a meet­ing host­ed by the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion at the Mount Irvine Bay Re­sort. The meet­ing was held to bring mem­bers of the To­ba­go busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty up to date on the lat­est de­vel­op­ments with the project.

Aboud said that as the project gets clos­er to D Day and the num­bers are clar­i­fied, the in­ten­tion is to of­fer To­ba­go peo­ple, whether it is To­ba­go busi­ness­men or even a To­ba­go com­mu­ni­ty, such as the Buc­coo com­mu­ni­ty, a share or shares in the ho­tel.

“They will have to pay for it, but it could be struc­tured where the Buc­coo Com­mu­ni­ty In­vest­ment Ltd could own one share of the ho­tel, which has 15 shares. So it’s not one share of a mil­lion shares, it is one share of 15,” said Aboud, in his pre­sen­ta­tion at the meet­ing. The idea was im­me­di­ate­ly greet­ed by a round of ap­plause from the au­di­ence at the meet­ing, which num­bered over 70 in­di­vid­u­als.

Lat­er in his pre­sen­ta­tion, he said the of­fer was for ei­ther one or two shares in the de­vel­op­ment.

Aboud said it is too soon to in­di­cate what the cost of the shares would be, be­cause the num­bers for the project are not set in stone.

“We have an idea, but if you’re ask­ing peo­ple to in­vest their mon­ey, you can’t give them what you think. You will need to be fair­ly de­fin­i­tive, and you have to have the peo­ple to sup­port it,” said Aboud.

“So def­i­nite­ly, I want to be able to put my mon­ey where my mouth is, but fur­ther de­tails would need to wait un­til we have a busi­ness plan and every­thing’s com­plete,” the de­vel­op­er said.

The pro­posed de­vel­op­ment will com­prise: a 200-room Mar­riott-brand­ed ho­tel; 16 week­end re­treat cab­ins; 12 re­sort-style vil­las; 15 sin­gle-fam­i­ly dwelling units and 12 town hous­es. Among the sup­port­ing fa­cil­i­ties pro­posed for the project would in­clude play­grounds, parks, swim­ming pools, ten­nis courts, bas­ket­ball and beach vol­ley­ball courts, a run­ning track and ex­ten­sive open, green spaces and land­scaped ar­eas.

Aboud’s pro­pos­al to sell a share or shares in the project to To­ba­go or a To­ba­go com­mu­ni­ty was very well re­ceived by three lead­ers on the is­land, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Cur­tis Williams, the pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said his phone start­ed ring­ing off the hook when Aboud made the an­nounce­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing a break in the meet­ing, Williams said mem­bers of his or­gan­i­sa­tion kept ask­ing him to see if things can be put in place to make the of­fer a re­al­i­ty.

He said what the of­fer means is that To­ba­go or To­bag­o­ni­ans could have an own­er­ship stake of the de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes a Mar­riott-brand­ed ho­tel.

“That’s big. That is re­al­ly big be­cause what we are talk­ing about could in­clude the as­so­ci­a­tions and the co­op­er­a­tives in To­ba­go, or in­di­vid­u­als on the is­land, who are will­ing to put in their funds and will be able to get a share of the project,” said Williams, adding, “I think that is a big plus and if there is one take­away from this meet­ing, it is that To­bag­o­ni­ans can be part of this project in terms of rev­enue com­ing back to them from an in­vest­ment.”

Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, Al­pha Lorde, de­scribed the of­fer of shares to To­bag­o­ni­ans or To­ba­go as “fan­tas­tic.”

Lorde said, “I think cre­at­ing re­al wealth and along the way de­vel­op­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, re­quires re­al in­vest­ment. A share in­vest­ment in a project like this is start­ing point to do­ing that.

“I think every busi­ness provider who is part of the ho­tel and tourism in­dus­try and is look­ing to in­crease their in­vest­ment should con­sid­er it.”

Lorde is the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Mount Irvine Bay Re­sort.

Com­ment­ing af­ter the meet­ing, Tashia Bur­ris, the sec­re­tary of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties & Trans­porta­tion at the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, de­scribed the of­fer of shares as “an ex­cel­lent ges­ture, in terms of demon­strat­ing that he be­lieves there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty, for not just a part­ner­ship, but for To­bag­o­ni­ans to feel as if they own part of the project.

“Def­i­nite­ly, I think that is some­thing that is an­oth­er plus for the project, be­cause many times when de­vel­op­ments come in­to small spaces like To­ba­go, peo­ple feel as if per­sons come in to the coun­try to take what they can from the des­ti­na­tion. And that mon­ey is repa­tri­at­ed out of the des­ti­na­tion and is not used to build the com­mu­ni­ties and the is­land.”

She said if To­bag­o­ni­ans get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a stake in the project, that would mean they would have a stake in ei­ther the suc­cess or fail­ure of the project.

“I think if To­bag­o­ni­ans get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to lit­er­al­ly own a stake in this project, they will be­come cham­pi­ons of the project, they will fo­cus more on the pos­i­tives and try to see if they can as­sist in mit­i­gat­ing some of the neg­a­tives be­cause every project has its pros and cons. Def­i­nite­ly, there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and in­volve­ment, in­clu­siv­i­ty as well as part­ner­ship,” said Bur­ris.