Holiday Inn Goes to Grenada Despite Reagan

The tiny Caribbean island nation of Grenada has pointedly been excluded from the "Caribbean Basin Initiative" announced recently by the Reagan administration.

A U.S. State Department document circulated early this year charged that a new airport being built on Grenada represents "military potential.. .(it is) an airfield allowing operations of every airplane in the Soviet-Cuban inventory."

But the largest single foreign investor in Grenada, Holiday Inns, is undaunted by Washington's rhetoric. The company decided in January to invest $2.5 million to rebuild and improve its 154-room hotel in Grenada, built in 1974, which has been closed since a fire of unknown origin caused extensive damage last October.

The Grenada government is allowing Holiday Inns to import construction materials for the renovation duty-free, says Loris Arevian, area manager and division vice-president for Commonwealth Holiday Inns of Canada, Ltd., which administers the Grenada hotel. "It makes economic sense" to rebuild, he says. "The new airport is 10 minutes from the hotel."