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Red Cross Considers Building Hotel and Conference Center in Haiti
- Tuesday, March 27, 2012 9:06 AM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is considering building a hotel and conference center in Haiti on part of a $10.5 million property that it bought after the 2010 earthquake.
The hope is that profits could sustain the work of Haiti’s local Red Cross in the coming years, the head of the international group’s Haitian delegation said Monday.
The 10-acre compound, known as the “Hilton Property,” was purchased from Comme Il Faut, Haiti’s local cigarette company, in the months after the quake, Eduard Tschan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The charity paid in a single payment, using funds donated by national Red Cross agencies for quake recovery. At the time, Haiti’s recovery was the largest operation in the organization’s history, with 3,000 people working here.
Now that its work is winding down, the international Red Cross is putting together an exit strategy and as part of that process is trying to figure out what to do with this property.
