13 December / 2004

Tourism Investment Fund To Promote Tela Bay Project

Alter 30 years, the government is making a dream come true. With support from the private sector, the local community and the central government, the Honduran Tourism Investment Fund (FHIT) has been created and is now contributing to the Tela Bay Project. This important step is evidence of the Honduran government’s commitment to supporting the Tela Bay Project as a “detonating agent” for tourism growth nationwide.

The Fund is a private sector initiative to inject the Tela Bay Project with the capital it needs to fully develop the hotel complex.

The FHIT consists of 35 Honduran business leaders who, either individually or through their companies, have contributed seed capital to the project. The initiative was born in August when Honduran President Ricardo Maduro presented the project to more than 100 local business leaders. Generating a great deal of interest in the project, that initial meeting was followed up by a trip to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic in order to explore and understand the experiences of that project and open the door for foreign investment.

According to estimates, Honduran investors will provide some $13 million, while their counterparts from the Dominican Republic will contribute another $17 million. An additionl government investment will bring the project’s initial price tag to $43 million. In the words of Honduran businessman José Lamas, the Tela Bay Project will soon be the country’s top generator of foreign revenue.

Just a two-hour flight from Miami, a half day’s drive from the Mayan ruins at Copan and a short flight from the paradisiacal Bay Islands, Tela Bay is slated to become a tourist distribution center, allowing visitors quick and easy access to the country’s top tourist destinations. The project will also include a 27-hole golf course designed by the world renowned Gary Player Design.

The Project – which Hill be called the Los Micos Beach & Golf Resort – will include 3.2 kilometers of Caribbean beach and is located near a nature reserve whose exotic bird life and unique beauty intermix with white faced monkeys among lagoons, mountains and coral reefs. The final project will include six hotels, residential zones, a shopping center and a spa.