Investment in hotels

AS reported in the press, a five-star hotel, named Radisson Water Garden Hotel, has been set up by the Sena Hotel Development Limited in collaboration with the Carlson Hotels Asia Pacific, a foreign concern. The eight-storied hotel complex has been built over seven acres of land in the cantonment area beside the Cantonment railway station. It is located at a place just five kilometres from the Zia International Airport. The hotel has two hundred and six rooms, five suites plus the largest ballroom measuring around one thousand square feet with sitting arrangements for eleven hundred and eighty guests and participants in different forums.

Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia inaugurated the hotel in a ceremonial function held in the hotel premises. The ceremony turned into a festival with the involvement of the Armed Forces, the cabinet ministers and diplomats of different countries. The location of the hotel being close to the airport, the diplomatic zone, the cantonment, and the residential areas of Gulshan, Banani and Uttara has made it a centre point of interest for residents of the locality. The tourists may opt for using the Radisson Water Garden Hotel in preference to other five star hotels and residential complexes if the facilities and services are broadened.

As it is, the involvement of the Bangladesh Army Welfare Trust and the UK-based company named Associated Building Design Limited have made it all to much social. Members of the Armed Forces, including those working in Peace Keeping Missions in different countries in the world, may obtain some benefit from the five star hotel. The remittances from members of peace keeping missions, that remained largely unused or improperly used by family members of the peace keeping forces, have literally been invested in the hotel. Dividends from such investments may be optimally used by contributors to the Sena Kalyan Trust.

People at large may look for good management of the five-star hotel and effective use of money earned in the hotel premises. The care for the tourists, the quality of food supplied and the use of the entertainment facilities for projecting the cultural heritage of Bangladesh and countries in the South Asian region have to be ensured. The hotel has its competitors in different parts of the capital city of Dhaka. The optimal use of the facilities in the hotel campus has to be the target of management. The urgings of the Prime Minister to optimise the use of earnings of the hotel for members of the Armed Forces and their families sounds positive. The use of locally available resources, in the form of provident fund of public servants, may turn good for the economy and the beneficiaries.