THE Princes Hotel & Casino will have a new look come September when the Hotel and Casino will be rebranded Ramada Georgetown Princess.

Work on the rebranding commenced about two years ago and the vision is to upgrade the imposing hotel located in an area of sprawling development at Providence, East Bank Demerara, to Five-Star status.
The Ramada brand offers visitors a warm and friendly stay. It provides guests with free, high-speed wireless Internet access, cozy beds for a relaxed and restful stay, guest bathrooms stocked with San Francisco Soap Company amenities and a variety of hotel choices to match every trip.

And this includes whether it is a family vacation or a quick stop and recharge, to a full-scale conference or lavish wedding.

Ramada in 1990 joined the Wyndham Hotel group, the world’s largest and most diverse hotel company, with some 7,670 hotels and 667,000 rooms in over 65 countries around the world. Wyndham was ranked second on Fortune Magazine’s “Most Admired” list of hotels, casinos and resorts.
Princess is nearing the completion of renovation work as it prepares for the grand launch of Ramada in September, which promises to be ‘a September to remember’.
To bring Princess up to high international standards, the hotel has invested some US$5 million in renovating and refurbishing of rooms, the lobby and public areas.
General Manager Ugur Turetgen told the Chronicle that thus far, work has been competed on the installation of three new elevators, the guests’ washroom facilities and re-modelling of the swimming pool.

RICH INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
And soon, a Javanese restaurant will be opened, adding flavour and diversity of a rich international experience, and will be made affordable to all. Work on the restaurant is expected to be completed in a month’s time.
Director of Operations of Princes Hotel & Casino, Petal Ridley, also said the conference facilities of the hotel have been re-modelled and upgraded to facilitate simultaneous translations of different languages, with an installed, high-tech multimedia projector and public address system. The soundproof conference hall has the capacity to seat over 500 persons.
The re-modelled hotel will be eco-friendly, featuring state-of-the-art, solar-powered LED technology.
A solar water-heating system will replace the old electric water heater in order to use renewable energy, instead of fossil sources to produce electricity.
All of the 195 rooms of the hotel will also have energy-saving systems as a conservational mechanism to eradicate electricity wastage.
Turetgen said the modern upgrades are in keeping with Ramada standards and are geared to position the luxurious hotel as the hotel of choice in Guyana.
The Princess Hotel was born about six years ago, and the strategy then was to tap into the niche markets of corporate Guyana. According to Ridley, the move earned the privately owned hotel much success. And with talk of the Marriott coming on stream, management thought it necessary to rebrand Princess.
“We thought that we should be on the same level. It should be a level playing field for international hotel chains in Guyana. So the company’s Chief Executive Officer said Ramada will be the way to go in order to gain Five- Star status,” Ridley related.

HERE WE ARE
In Guyana, there is no internationally rated hotel with the exception of the Marriott. But this will soon change, “So Ramada, here we are,” the Marketing Manager told the Chronicle.
The U.S. company, which has hotels in neighbouring Suriname, Belize and St Maarten, has already been rebranded Ramada.
Since assuming ownership, Ridley said Princess has been holding its own due mainly to several strategy positions of management. The hotel offers various packages apart from the weekend package as well as special rates.
In Guyana, the competition among hotels is stiff. There are about 10 major hotels competing for the same market.
“If we have about 300 people coming to Guyana every day, my market research has shown that we do not have 300 going into these hotels. The majority of them go by families and the smaller hotels. So what we do based on that market research was to set rates that are comparable to those hotels, so that we can attract these people and earn our fair share of that market,” Ridley said.
Princess also has been working with the Guianas to attract visitors and from time to time attracts large contingents of visitors from Brazil and Venezuela who spend the weekend there. There is a special weekend package for families: they can check in on Friday at 15:00hrs and enjoy breakfast and dinner and have access to the swimming pool, gym, Fun City and the hotel’s club, Club Next, all at a nominal rate. The weekend relaxer ends on Sunday at 15:00hrs.

CHURCH TOURISM
With parent churches holding their conventions in different Caribbean states every year, Princess has capitalised on the opportunity to establish a foothold in the “Church Tourism” market.
“Church tourism has taken off with a speed in Guyana, only recently we just hosted two big church conferences here. We are also trying to capitalise on the wedding tourism market. Recently, we have found that a lot of people are into the American and British way of doing things. When a loved one dies overseas, the body is brought home for final resting and the family hosts a remembrance ceremony. We are also catering for these events,” the Director of Operations told this publication.
Princes Hotel has been working with the Ministry of Tourism and the Guyana Tourism Authority since from its inception.
The hotel is awaiting the publication of the annual Tourism Calendar as it plans to provide visitors a memorable and satisfying experience during their stay.
“We treat all of our guests equally, we do not have [a] segregated market here at all. Once you come through that door, you are guest and we treat you courteously,” Ridley said, as she urged all to visit and experience the treat of the-soon-to-be rebranded hotel.

By Tajeram Mohabir