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Hoteliers rightly want the government to abandon plans to build a luxury hotel and conference centre in Nicosia, arguing that low occupancy rates in the capital will drive the project to failure.
The Association of Cyprus Tourist Enterprises, STEK, is against plans to demolish the derelict Philoxenia Hotel and build a new luxury hotel in its place in four years time with funding from Qatar, with parallel plans to renovate the adjoining International Conference Centre.
Hoteliers said that plans are already underway to build a new state-of-the-art conference centre in Limassol in time for when Cyprus takes over the EU Presidency in 2012.
Is this yet another hasty decision, such as the rush to build a cultural monolith in the capital, simply to say that Nicosia must have a Centre for the Arts to host events in less than four years from now?
Building a centre for the arts will have absolutely no use if the state does not invest in the arts, either by encouraging younger people to embrace music, dance, theatre and art, or by financially supporting those who are dedicated to promoting culture. The budget for the new centre for the arts could be better distributed to other, smaller and needy groups that are struggling to survive, yet produce high-quality art. Furthermore, the site for the new arts centre could accommodate the new parliament building, instead of slamming the new House right on top of the only archaeological site that the capital could boast of.
Where is the viability study for the Philoxenia and what guarantees are there that yet another centre for the arts will not become a white elephant in a decade’s time?
STEK wisely suggests that the Philoxenia be repaired and operated as a 3- or 4-star property and a high-calibre hotel school in cooperation with an international university to house trainees all year round and retrain those who are out of work in winter to learn new aspects of the trade.
Money saved from such a mega-project in the capital could be diverted to improve the transport infrastructure and could go in the form of subsidies for Nicosia’s main hotels to build new, multi-storey parking lots and solve the eternal problem of a shortage for car spaces.
Judging from the number of tourists it attracts and companies it hosts, Limassol is undoubtedly the business capital of Cyprus, making it all the more fitting to house the biggest conference centre, operated by a consortium of all the town’s hoteliers who are united in this argument.
Who knows, perhaps reason will prevail some day and we might even start thinking about a casino…
