Haiti Is Ready For Tourists

Shown in rendering, the lobby of the Marriott Port-au-Prince will fill with guests on Valentine’s Day.—Courtesy Marriott Port-au-Prince

A popular bar-restaurant high in the mountains above Port-au-Prince, Observatoire has clear views over nearly the whole city and the sea beyond. Sip a drink on the umbrella-shaded patio and down below you will see only two high-rise structures standing out in the Haitian capital’s low cityscape—the Digicel telecom headquarters, and, surprise, a new 175-room Marriott hotel next door, which is scheduled to open next month.

Today marks the fifth-anniversary of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that knocked much of the city’s downtown to the ground. Of late, under the young, proactive Minister of Tourism, Stéphanie Villedrouin, Haiti has begun a push to restore its stature as a top destination—back in the 1950s, after all, the nation enjoyed a travel reputation close to Havana’s.

“Haiti is at a turning point as a destination,” says Marriott sales director Elsa Sammartano. Inspired by Chairman Bill Marriott’s post-quake visit, the new property is also Marriott’s biggest social responsibility project. TheDigicel-owned hotel will be nearly entirely Haitian-operated, with a focus on women among the eventual 160 employees. A selection of recent tourism school graduates have been sent for thirteen weeks of training to the JW Marriott Hotel Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. 

As far as possible, all uniforms will be sourced in Haiti. For the open-kitchen restaurant which will prepare both international and Haitian cuisine, local vendors will supply everything right down to organic chicken and coffee (the source of immense wealth in the French colonial era).

The Marriott may be the newest hotel, but it’s just one of many in the past year that have popped up, been rebuilt or expanded, and all with aesthetic touches that pay homage to Haiti’s rich arts, from painting to metalwork sculpture. Most of the properties are in Pétionville, the hilly upscale area where much of commerce moved after the earthquake. It’s where business people and expats share the sidewalk with fruit sellers and artisans, and SUVs share the clogged streets with the ubiquitous, colorful tap-tap buses that are painted with Biblical exhortations and marvelously offbeat phrases like “Amour & Discipline.”