Yes­ter­day, my col­league, se­nior mul­ti­me­dia busi­ness re­porter An­drea Perez-Sobers, wrote the lead sto­ry for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian un­der the head­line ‘Hilton warns of Sep­tem­ber 18 ex­it as lease arrange­ment yet to be fi­nalised.’ The Hilton’s dead­line for the con­clu­sion of the ne­go­ti­a­tions to ex­tend the lease is im­por­tant, news­wor­thy, and con­se­quen­tial be­cause the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre has been an im­por­tant part of T&T’s post-In­de­pen­dence his­to­ry as the coun­try’s first ma­jor ho­tel with an in­ter­na­tion­al brand.

The ho­tel, which was com­plet­ed in 1962 just be­fore this coun­try’s In­de­pen­dence, was for decades its pre­mier ho­tel and the place where most of the ma­jor con­fer­ences, meet­ings and cel­e­bra­tions were held.

Hilton Trinidad was al­so the place where al­most all of the busi­ness­peo­ple who came to Trinidad would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly book, be­cause of its brand, stan­dards and its lo­ca­tion close to gov­ern­ment of­fices in down­town Port-of-Spain and with­in 40 min­utes of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.