Programs: Oasis
Facts
Announced:
May 9, 2011
Category:
Providing Small & Growing Businesses with Access to Financing & Business Services
Grant Amount: Equity Share of $1,999,500; Grant of $264,000
Grant Objective:
Investment in a Haitian-owned hotel & hospitality workers that will invigorate Haiti's tourism sector.
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The shell of the building was designed to international seismic standards.
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Oasis staff looking out over the building site.
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund has made an equity investment in Oasis — a $29 million, Haitian-owned, 130-room hotel with retail space, whose construction was abruptly halted following the devastating 2010 earthquake. The project symbolizes Haiti "building back better," and its completion will tell the world that Haiti is open for business.
Just 100 of Haiti's less than 500 business class hotel rooms survived the earthquake, and today Haiti has a critical shortage of hotel rooms that meet basic international standards. For Haiti's recovery to be sustainable, the country must attract businesses and investors who will need a business class, seismically safe hotel staffed by highly-trained hospitality workers. The Oasis Project will meet this need, with far reaching impact.
The Oasis Hotel
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund made a nearly $2M equity investment in the Oasis Hotel. The $29 million, Haitian-owned, 130-room hotel and retail space will be managed by Occidental Hotels and Resorts. Though original construction was abruptly halted following the earthquake, the new project sends a powerful message that Haiti is “open for business.”
The Oasis project will promote jobs and create economic opportunity. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates that each job in a hotel project of this size in Haiti generates three indirect jobs in the community.
L’École Hôtelière Haitienne (the Haiti Hotel School)
The Oasis Hotel’s nonprofit arm, the Oasis Foundation, is also bolstering the hospitality sector by reopening l’École Hôtelière Haitienne (the Haiti Hotel School) with an additional $264,000 grant from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The school, an institution under Haiti’s Ministry of Tourism, is the only comprehensive hospitality training school of its kind in Haiti. Some graduates will go on to work at the Oasis Hotel, while others will find employment at hotels across the country.
“Just as access to jobs is crucial for Haiti’s development, local businesses—especially the many new hotels under construction—must have access to a skilled workforce for sustainable economic growth. With this grant [for the Haiti Hotel School], we will be able to provide hospitality workers with the skills essential to building back a better Haiti."
- Mrs. Hildegard Epstein Cassis, director of the Oasis Foundation
Why We Invested in the Oasis Hotel and l’École Hôtelière Haitienne
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund’s investment in Oasis and l’École Hôtelière Haitienne reflects our commitment to supporting the restart, creation and expansion of Haitian-owned businesses and our goals for workforce development.
Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund's equity investment in the Oasis Hotel will create jobs in the tourism and hospitality sectors, announcing that Haiti is now open for business. It's support for re-opening l’École Hôtelière Haitienne will bolster the workforce at the Oasis Hotel and other destinations across the country, key to developing Haiti's tourism sector.
- Create close to 400 jobs in the construction phase of the hotel;
- Support over 200 permanent jobs in the operations phase;
- Empower local vendors and retailers by sourcing most all of the hotel's goods and services from local vendors and using some of the property's 15 retail spaces to showcase locally manufactured goods, paintings and artisan crafts;
- Provide hospitality training for the 200 students enrolled in the École Hôtelière Haitienne (Haiti Hotel School) each year, welcoming hospitality students from across the country.
About the Oasis Project
The Oasis project is being developed by the Haitian Societe de Construction D'Inmeubles et D'Ouvrages Publiques S.A. (SCIOP), with nearly 100 Haitian individual and institutional shareholders (some of whom are small investors acquiring shares on a time-purchase basis). SCIOP owns the land for the hotel project and is already operating a successful restaurant in an existing villa on the property.
The project was fully-funded and under construction, three stories were completed, prior to the earthquake. As the building shell was designed to international seismic standards, it sustained no damage in the earthquake. Its structural integrity was initially reviewed post-earthquake by the international structural engineering firm Miyamoto International and continues to be reviewed by the firm during ongoing construction.
The Oasis Hotel's nonprofit arm, the Oasis Foundation, was established to reinvigorate the hospitality sector in Haiti. Together with the Haiti Hotel School and Haiti’s Ministry of Tourism, and with additional support from Occidental Hotels and the USAID/Haiti Recovery Initiative, it is providing this training through the Haiti Hotel School.
Learn more about the Oasis Hotel at www.oasishaiti.com.
