In­ter­na­tion­al hote­lier Hilton is prepar­ing to with­draw its brand from the State-owned prop­er­ty af­ter the Gov­ern­ment failed to un­der­take ex­ten­sive cap­i­tal up­grades—es­ti­mat­ed to be over US$600,000 —re­quired to main­tain the fa­cil­i­ty to in­ter­na­tion­al op­er­at­ing stan­dards, ac­cord­ing to lease agree­ments, reg­is­tered records, pro­cure­ment doc­u­ments, union cor­re­spon­dence and in­dus­try analy­sis re­viewed by Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed that the ho­tel chain has al­ready be­gun steps to ex­it the arrange­ment that has gov­erned op­er­a­tions at the Port-of-Spain land­mark for more than two decades.

The de­vel­op­ment, while not yet fi­nalised, fol­lows a pat­tern of fi­nan­cial un­der­per­for­mance, de­layed cap­i­tal works, and con­trac­tu­al sig­nals.