Above: the signing ceremony on Thursday in Port-au-Prince (Photo: OPM Haiti)

By Alexander Britell

Hilton has signed an agreement to open its first hotel in Haiti.

After what was reportedly a four-year-long process, the company signed an agreement on Thursday to open a Hilton Garden Inn in Port-au-Prince.

The project will have at least 150 rooms, according to the Ministry of Tourism. It will also be the first Hilton Garden Inn in the Caribbean region, where the company currently has eight branded hotels.

Tedd Middleton, vice president of development for Hilton World Wide America, was on hand for the signing ceremony, which took place at the Visa Lodge Hotel. The Visa Lodge will be a partner in the project, according to the Ministry of Tourism.

Middleton said he was proud to see that Haiti would be home to its first Hilton Garden Inn.

Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, who was also on hand for the ceremony, said the agreement sent a strong message to businessmen around the world to come down to invest.

“Haiti is moving forward to attract investment,” Lamothe said.

It would be the latest large hotel brand to enter the Caribbean country, which has been making a renewed tourism push in recent years.

A Marriott hotel is set to open in 2015, and a Best Western Premier hotel opened in Port-au-Prince’s Petion-Ville suburb in the spring of 2013.

The property is slated to debut in Haiti in 2016. .

It would be Hilton’s first entry to the country after originally planning to open a hotel in Haiti in the early part of the 2000s.