5 months ago
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Jamaica’s first casino is expected to open for business in 2025, a government official indicated this week.
It’s to be built by the Princess hotel chain at its resort complex that’s under development in Hanover. The gambling house is a key component of the second phase of the resort project.
“If all goes according to plan, we expect that the casino at Princess Grand Jamaica will be open mid to late 2025,” said Delano Seiveright, senior adviser and strategist in the Ministry of Tourism.
“They are going through the motions, which are particularly robust and highly detailed. And we are keeping our fingers crossed that they will move to add another 1,000 rooms to the property thereafter, bringing the resort up to over 2,000 rooms,” he said.
The Ministry of Finance awarded Princess Hotels with an approved integrated resort development order, AIRD, in March. The permit entitles the hotel to apply to the Casino Gaming Commission for a casino gaming licence, once it satisfies criteria relating to room count and other conditionalities.
The ministry has issued AIRDs in the past, but none of the projects that were initially approved as casino resorts were able to raise funds for execution of the developments. Princess Hotels is now poised to become the first casino operator.
Its overall hotel development at Green Island includes four hotels spanning 2,037 rooms, plus villas, which would make it Jamaica’s largest resort complex. Two of the hotels will be ‘adults only’. The first phase encompasses 1,012 hotel rooms, while the second incorporates 1,025 hotel rooms, 14 overwater villas, and a casino.
Princess Hotels and Resorts Limited, based in Spain, acquired approximately 73 hectares of land (180 acres) at Green Island, which is next door to Negril, for the hotel development. The site’s shoreline spans 2.3 kilometres.
Construction of phase one began in 2021 and should be completed this summer.
Princess Hotels wants to build a temporary road to facilitate access to the construction site for the second phase of the development. The environmental impact assessment report on the project argued that, without the temporary road, vehicular activity would disturb the main entrance of the hotel.
The same report indicated that the Princess resort “will have an estimated daily flow of up to 1,800 resort workers; up to 1,800 all-inclusive clients; up to 600 casino clients”.
Jamaica finally introduced legislation to legalise casino gambling in 2010, after years of lobbying by local business interests, who finally prevailed, notwithstanding powerful and sustained pressure against casinos by the religious community.
The first two AIRDs that were gazetted were approved for casino resorts at Rose Hall in Montego Bay and Harmony Cove in Trelawny. The initiator of the MoBay development passed away without landing the required investment, while the second resort, a joint venture project of the Jamaican government and Tavistock Group, has been in stasis.
The Jamaican government eventually came in for criticism for making the conditionalities too difficult for casino resort investors to satisfy.
In response to industry pleadings, the requirements were eventually amended to cut the required investment to US$500 million, down from US$1.2 billion. The minimum room count was also cut from 2,000 to 1,000.
Back in March, Finance Minister Nigel Clarke indicated that the Harmony Cove development still had life left in it; that the government’s joint venture partners had indicated they were in a position to proceed with the project and that the JV agreement was to be restated.
The Government of Jamaica plans to grow the hotel room count from 32,000 to 50,000 in five years. Casino gaming would expand and further diversify the product offerings.
“Despite global headwinds, the tourism investment climate is buzzing with new developments and plans,” said Seiveright. “Riu Palace Aquarelle in Trelawny opened just a month ago, with 753 rooms, and Princess will open this summer,” he said, adding that next year should see the development of a 450-room Unico resort, with other projects to come.
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