Premier Ewart Brown said hotel developer Carl Bazarian now has funding in place for the new Park Hyatt hotel in St. George's.

The Premier also said the former Sonesta/Wyndham property was for sale at his media round-table on Monday. During the hour-and-a-half discussion Dr. Brown said his time as Minster of Tourism has been a "qualified success".

He said the global recession had hampered the local tourism industry. "The reason I say it's a qualified success is because that had it not been for our policy, the tourism numbers would have been worse," he said. "When I report a three percent increase in a quarter, I'm very proud of it, because I know what is happening in other places, and I know that we are holding strong with respect to air arrivals being above and beyond what we expected internally, because of the tightness of the US economy."

Turning to the Park Hyatt redevelopment on the former Club Med property, which has been on the cards for several years and had seen projected construction dates come and go, Dr. Brown said a "major announcement" would be made in ten days.

When asked, by Larry Burchall of Bernews, why Government had not invested in the project instead of spending millions on other capital projects he said: "You don't just jump up as the Government and give a developer $300 million for a hotel unless you believe that you are at that point and there is no other way to get it done. Mr. Bazarian has proven that it is possible for the private sector to get it done without the Government doing anything other than facilitating and making it a little easier."

Later when pressed that Mr. Bazarian had yet to come up with the funding to build the new hotel he said: "Yes he did... October 21 the announcement, you will have a front seat."

The plan for the proposed development outlines 122 hotel beds which will be spread between eight buildings; a further eight buildings would house 39 villas.

Dr. Brown added that he was happy hotel development had not started before the recession as it could have meant Bermuda would have a number of half-built projects on its hands due to developers walking away from projects. He indicated similar scenarios happened across the Caribbean.

"We don't have a Wyndham, but we have a cleared site and land there for sale," he said. "I think that when the market clears up, you are going to see people, provided we don't chase them away, buying those properties and develop new hotels."

Last year The Royal Gazette reported industry sources as saying Scout Real Estate Capital, of New York, was looking to sell the former Sonesta/Wyndham property. They declined to comment on the article. The resort's future was thrown into question after Lehman Brothers, the company which was supposed to finance the building, went bankrupt in 2009.

The Premier added that he did not believe public money should have gone into hotel developments during his time as Minister of Tourism. "First of all I would never have urged the Government, even if we knew the recession was coming, to go out and actually invest that kind of money in hotels at that point. These are private ventures. The Government doesn't benefit from those ventures when they are extremely successful other than by the usual means of room taxes and what have you. The point is you have to let the private sector generate something as well."

He said that in 1998 the Progressive Labour Party passed the Hotel Concessions Act to make it easier for hoteliers to refurbish their properties. He added they had also passed laws to make it easier to build fractional developments.