GEISHA KOWES­SAR ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter years of mount­ing loss­es, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing fa­cil­i­ties, man­age­ment up­heaval and re­peat­ed at­tempts to turn around op­er­a­tions that have left the once-pre­mier To­ba­go re­sort a shad­ow of its for­mer self, work­ers at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach & Golf Re­sort say a sale of the state-owned prop­er­ty may fi­nal­ly of­fer the fresh start the ho­tel des­per­ate­ly needs.

The calls come as the Gov­ern­ment is re­port­ed­ly ex­plor­ing op­tions for the re­sort, in­clud­ing pos­si­ble di­vest­ment, amid wider ef­forts to re­duce loss­es at un­der­per­form­ing state en­ter­pris­es.

While the prospect of a sale has height­ened anx­i­ety among em­ploy­ees, many work­ers said a prop­er­ly struc­tured sev­er­ance pack­age and new pri­vate-sec­tor in­vest­ment may be the best out­come for both staff and To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor.

“I think the ma­jor­i­ty of staff would wel­come a good sev­er­ance pack­age and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to move on,” one long-serv­ing em­ploy­ee said.

“Some peo­ple may want to be re­hired if a new op­er­a­tor comes in, but af­ter years of un­cer­tain­ty, many work­ers sim­ply want clar­i­ty.”

For em­ploy­ees, the lat­est de­vel­op­ments are on­ly the newest chap­ter in a long-run­ning strug­gle.

The Mag­dale­na has faced re­peat­ed chal­lenges over the years, in­clud­ing de­clin­ing oc­cu­pan­cy, age­ing in­fra­struc­ture, main­te­nance is­sues and man­age­ment changes.

Work­ers say suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions have promised im­prove­ments, yet many of the prop­er­ty’s long-stand­ing prob­lems re­main un­re­solved.

Staff de­scribed a work­place gripped by un­cer­tain­ty fol­low­ing a de­ci­sion in late Sep­tem­ber to send ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 work­ers on un­paid leave.

Those who re­main fear they could be next.

“It’s grim,” the em­ploy­ee said adding, “The peo­ple who are still here don’t know if they’ll be sent home too. No­body knows what’s hap­pen­ing. Peo­ple have fam­i­lies, bills and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and there’s very lit­tle in­for­ma­tion.”

Adding to the frus­tra­tion are ques­tions sur­round­ing how af­fect­ed work­ers were in­formed of the de­ci­sion.

Em­ploy­ees say some of those work­ers have sought le­gal ad­vice and con­tact­ed the Min­istry of Labour to de­ter­mine whether all re­quired pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed be­fore the leave arrange­ments were im­ple­ment­ed.

The un­cer­tain­ty has al­so fu­elled con­cerns about what comes next, par­tic­u­lar­ly for work­ers who may be forced to seek al­ter­na­tive em­ploy­ment while wait­ing to hear whether they would be re­called.

“If some­body has to go and find an­oth­er job to sup­port their fam­i­ly, how do you call them back months lat­er?” the em­ploy­ee asked.

Staff fur­ther ar­gued that the ho­tel’s dif­fi­cul­ties ex­tend far be­yond re­cent work­force re­duc­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to work­ers, the re­sort has a room stock of around 200 rooms but cur­rent­ly has around 87 rooms in good con­di­tion be­cause a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber re­main out of ser­vice due to main­te­nance prob­lems in­clud­ing air-con­di­tion­ing sys­tems, hot-wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er key fa­cil­i­ties have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over time, re­duc­ing the ho­tel’s earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty and cre­at­ing a cy­cle of de­clin­ing rev­enue and mount­ing op­er­a­tional chal­lenges.

Work­ers say this is a di­rect con­se­quence of years of poor man­age­ment.

“The is­sue has nev­er been the staff. The prob­lem has al­ways been main­te­nance and man­age­ment”

Em­ploy­ees are al­so ques­tion­ing how funds al­lo­cat­ed to the prop­er­ty over the years were spent.

The chal­lenges fac­ing em­ploy­ees ex­tend be­yond the con­di­tion of the prop­er­ty it­self.

Work­ers al­so re­port in­con­sis­tent ser­vice-charge pay­ments, trans­porta­tion dif­fi­cul­ties and on­go­ing con­cerns about staff wel­fare.

Ser­vice charges, which form an im­por­tant part of many em­ploy­ees’ earn­ings, have re­port­ed­ly been de­layed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, while work­ers say they were some­times giv­en lit­tle ex­pla­na­tion as to how pay­ments were cal­cu­lat­ed.

Trans­porta­tion has al­so be­come an is­sue af­ter the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of staff shut­tle ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly for work­ers fin­ish­ing late-night shifts.

De­spite the crit­i­cism, em­ploy­ees said the cur­rent man­age­ment team in­her­it­ed many of the re­sort’s prob­lems and is at­tempt­ing to sta­bilise op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, work­ers be­lieve the scale of the chal­lenges may ul­ti­mate­ly re­quire a more fun­da­men­tal so­lu­tion.

Many point to To­ba­go’s need for ad­di­tion­al ho­tel rooms and fresh tourism in­vest­ment, ar­gu­ing that the re­sort could thrive un­der ex­pe­ri­enced pri­vate-sec­tor own­er­ship or as part of an in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel brand.

“We need more rooms in To­ba­go, not less,” the em­ploy­ee said. “If an in­vestor comes in, re­fur­bish­es the prop­er­ty, re­brands it and cre­ates jobs, that would be a win for To­ba­go.”

For now, how­ev­er, work­ers re­main caught be­tween hope and un­cer­tain­ty as they await a de­ci­sion on the fu­ture of one of To­ba­go’s most recog­nis­able tourism as­sets.

Af­ter years of strug­gling through man­age­ment changes, fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and op­er­a­tional chal­lenges, many say what they want most is a clear path for­ward.

“Peo­ple are ner­vous be­cause no­body knows what’s next,” the em­ploy­ee said. “At this point, staff just want an­swers.”

To­ba­go Cham­ber wel­comes di­vest­ment dis­cus­sion

Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams, wel­comed com­ments from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­gard­ing the fu­ture of the Mag­dale­na, ar­gu­ing that gov­ern­ments are gen­er­al­ly not equipped to op­er­ate com­mer­cial en­ter­pris­es.

“I was at the con­sul­ta­tion in­volv­ing the Mar­riott project, and I have al­ways said that gov­ern­ment can­not run busi­ness,” Williams said.

He said both the Prime Min­is­ter and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine have ex­pressed sim­i­lar views about the role of gov­ern­ment in com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions.

“I wel­come the move to seek pri­vate in­vestors to come in and take hold of the Mag­dale­na and some of these state-run busi­ness­es that are prob­a­bly op­er­at­ing at sig­nif­i­cant loss­es,” Williams fur­ther re­it­er­at­ed.

“As some­body who comes from a busi­ness back­ground, I know for sure gov­ern­ment can­not run busi­ness. It’s a pos­i­tive move and one that is be­ing wel­comed with­in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.”

Govt de­fends de­ci­sion

Sad­dam Ho­sein, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs, who is al­so line min­is­ter for the Evolv­ing Tec­Knolo­gies & En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (eTecK), de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach, say­ing the ho­tel’s fi­nan­cial re­al­i­ties can no longer be ig­nored.

“The Mag­dale­na has been run­ning at a loss every sin­gle day. Fur­ther, the Hilton is in need of ma­jor re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and up­grades. At this time, the Gov­ern­ment is pri­ori­tis­ing ex­pen­di­ture to bet­ter serve all of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ho­sein told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

He stressed that any di­vest­ment process would be con­duct­ed through an open and com­pet­i­tive mech­a­nism.

“The process will be done by an Ex­pres­sion of In­ter­est to the world, which means lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al per­sons who are in­ter­est­ed in the projects can par­tic­i­pate in an open and trans­par­ent man­ner.”

Ho­sein added that the Gov­ern­ment does not have a pre­ferred pur­chas­er.

“The Gov­ern­ment has no po­ten­tial buy­ers. How­ev­er, if your me­dia house is in­ter­est­ed, they are free to re­spond to the EOI like any oth­er per­son,” he added.

Pre­vi­ous bids to di­vest Mag­dale­na

In Jan­u­ary 2025, then fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had re­vealed the gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to di­vest the ho­tel as part of its spe­cial projects for 2025.

In Oc­to­ber 2019, Im­bert al­so stat­ed at a post-bud­get fo­rum that the then Gov­ern­ment was in talks with Unit­ed States-based trav­el and hos­pi­tal­i­ty con­glom­er­ate Ap­ple Leisure Group to take over op­er­a­tor­ship of Mag­dale­na Grand.

Ap­ple Leisure Group is the par­ent of re­sort and brand man­age­ment com­pa­ny AM­Re­sorts and its loy­al­ty pro­gramme, Un­lim­it­ed Va­ca­tion Club.

The deal, how­ev­er, did not pan out for rea­sons not pub­licly stat­ed.

Own­er of Le Voy­age Ho­tels and Re­sorts in Flori­da and CEO and Founder of The Any­thing Group (TAG), Rich Tuck­well-Sku­da, who works with sev­er­al ho­tel chains glob­al­ly, had shared with the Busi­ness Guardian that one of the is­sues block­ing the sale of the Mag­dale­na was the pric­ing of the re­sort.

Tuck­well-Sku­da said that when putting up a re­sort for sale, many fac­tors have to be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, such as the age of the prop­er­ty and the amount of in­fra­struc­ture work the buy­er has to do along with pur­chas­ing the prop­er­ty.