MONTEGO BAY, St James – Spanish Ambassador Jesus Silva says investments by Spanish companies in Jamaica’s tourism sector are expected to surpass US$1.3 billion by next year.

This, he argued, is likely to be the biggest investment in Jamaica by any single country in recent times.

“By 2006, we will probably become foreign investor number one, before the US,” Silva said Saturday night at the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annual Awards Banquet at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Rose Hall, St James.

“The biggest foreign investment in Jamaica until now, to my knowledge, is the bauxite sector with approximately US$650 million, so we will more than double this,” the ambassador stated.

Spanish hotel companies have recently been buying acres of land, mostly on the island’s north coast, in an apparent bid to expand their Caribbean portfolios.

For example, the RIU Group is substantially advanced in the construction of a 600-room property at Mammee Bay in St Ann, having already built two other hotels with a total of 842 rooms in Negril.

Another group of Spanish investors, Grupo Pinero, is presently building Bahia Principe, a complex comprising three hotels with 600-rooms each in St Ann.

Other Spanish chains, Barcelo Hotels and Resorts, and Grupo Iberostar Hotels and Resorts have also made plans to build here.

Silva told the businessmen on Saturday that the new resorts will create direct employment of 15,000 and roughly 50,000 indirect jobs.

He said that within two years, 100,000 Spanish tourists are expected to visit the island annually.

“In addition, some other 300,000 European tourists will come with the opening up of the new Spanish hotels,” Silva said, adding that future direct fights from Europe into Jamaica are currently being studied.

But the wave of tourism investments by the Spanish companies has raised concerns in some quarters.

Last month, the Jamaica Labour Party spokesman on tourism, Ed Bartlett, called on the government to state publicly the terms and conditions under which the Spanish hotel chains were investing here.

Bartlett said at that time that the government needed to allay the fears held by some local players in the tourism industry that their Spanish competitors may have been given unfair advantages.

“The concern is against the background that the indigenous tourism sector is fearful of its own ability to compete, in what is being perceived to be an uneven playing field,” he said.

Sandals hotel chain boss Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart had also raised concerns about the construction of new hotel rooms, noting that there was no proper plan in place to fill these additional rooms.

The expansion, Stewart suggested, could be devastating to small hotels, which, in some cases, were already suffering a reduction in rates.

Silva told the businessmen on Saturday night that he was aware of the concerns.

“I know that there are some Jamaicans who fear the competition that the arrival of Spanish investors implies,” he said. “Some allege the environmental damage potentially being caused to the coastline while others fear the lower hotel rates that are being offered by some of the new hotels.”

He, however, assured the businessmen that the investments would be beneficial to the country.

“I can tell Jamaicans on a whole that the investments are good for your people and the country, and it is the right decision to make tourism your number one industry,” Silva said.