Big hotels pitch in on hurricane relief effort

Large international hotels are becoming places of refuge in the wake of Hurricane Mitch's devastation of Central America.

Nicaragua and Honduras bore the brunt of what is known locally as El Monstruo, which has left more than 30,000 people dead or missing, and an estimated three million homeless.

Marcedes Santos, sales and marketing director at the Best Western Gran Sula in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, said that the hotel had boarded staff and their families during the first week of the catastrophic storms, floods and mudslides that ravaged three-quarters of the land and affected more than one-third of the population.

Many employees are now at home repairing the damage. Meanwhile, the hotel is providing food, clothes and lodging for those who have nowhere to go, or paying for them to stay at other hotels when there were no spare rooms.

Some aid, Santos added, was being sent by the US-based family of general manager Thomas Jacobson.

Hans Scholte, sales and marketing director at the Hotel Inter-Continental Managua in Nicaragua, said that 12 staff had been directly affected by the hurricane and one, who lost everything, was still living at the hotel.

Scholte said that a number of banquets and December parties had been cancelled, as companies decided to donate money to the relief and rebuilding programme instead.

Nevertheless, his hotel and others in Managua are currently full with the influx of reporters and relief delegates, although he expects a sharp decline later.

And Santos said that while 50% of bookings at the Best Western Gran Sula were cancelled during the first week, journalists and relief workers had boosted occupancy.

With so much of Nicaragua's farmland and infrastructure destroyed, Scholte said the biggest problem was going to be the cost of food, which the hotel is having to import.

Meanwhile, an appeal among Choice hotel franchisees has so far raised US$25,000 (£14,600) for the American Red Cross.

By Angela Frewin