When Sandals chief executive Adam Stewart takes to the stage in Manchester to deliver a passionate, almost messianic, speech about “the Sandals difference”, he is greeted by whoops and cheers from more than 400 agents.
He’s in town for a series of “Unveilings” - the first time the group has held these large-scale agent events in the UK. And with a new hotel opened in Grenada earlier this year, and one to come in Barbados in January, the UK market is now more important to Sandals than ever. These two new properties take the group to 5,479 rooms in total across all three brands: Sandals, Beaches and
Grand Pineapple Resorts.
A million guests a year, with a repeat guest rate of more than 40%, are statistics most hoteliers could only dream of. “We create hotels like this so your customers come back and say, thank you for sending me to Sandals,” he tells the crowd.
A “no limits” video streamed during dinner emphasises the extent of what’s included on a Sandals holiday, and seems to refer more directly to its competitors than the group has done previously.
When I interview Stewart in between the Manchester and London roadshows, I ask if this aggressive approach is in response to greater competition. After all, Hyatt has just launched a premium all-inclusive brand in Sandals’ heartland of Jamaica, and AMResorts and Blue Diamond’s Royalton Resorts are also expanding.
“These companies are real estate developers, not hoteliers. You won’t see Baha Mar coming to do what we did in Manchester”
“We don’t view ourselves as being in competition with anyone else per se,” he replies. “But you have to know what’s happening around you. And from what I can see, we are including more and more and they are including less.” Free Wi-Fi in all resorts and complimentary sailing lessons are some of the most recent new additions to the Sandals package.
He must also be keeping an eye on new-build mega-resorts such as Baha Mar in the Bahamas and a casino complex in Antigua, which is being built with Chinese investment, I suggest. Stewart seems unconcerned.
“It’s good for Nassau to get a more premium tourism offering and Baha Mar should bring more airlift,” he says. “But these companies are real estate developers, not hoteliers. There’ll be a burst of excitement but you won’t see Baha Mar coming to do what we did last night in Manchester.”
Cruise lines are almost a bigger threat than rival resorts, particularly the large, family-friendly brands. “You have to pay attention to cruise lines’ sheer volume,” he admits. “When a line has something like 60,000 cabins, yes, they are competitors”. Beaches resorts have had surf-simulators since the first Beaches opened in 2009, though, he points out wryly.
Higher specifications
Stewart may not admit that it’s in response to fiercer competition, but Sandals has undoubtedly upped its game in terms of product in the last year.
Sandals Grenada, which opened in January 2014, set a new benchmark for the company, with radical plunge-pools on cantilevered balconies, striking marble bathtubs, a sophisticated colour palette and chic, handcrafted artwork and furnishings. “We proved that we can build things better than anyone in the world,” he claims.
This “Grenada spec” is now being implemented at Sandals Barbados, which opens on January 28 next year, and will be home to the longest river pool in the Caribbean.
Dining options have also moved up a gear for Sandals, with a new steak restaurant, Butch’s Chophouse, debuted in Grenada while the Barbados resort will gain Sandals’ first Indian restaurant.
“And unlike on certain cruise ships, you don’t have to pay a $20 supplement for these speciality restaurants,” Stewart notes.
Expansion and investment will not finish with Sandals Barbados either. A Beaches is next for Barbados, while the Grand Pineapple in Antigua will become a Beaches in 2016. Beaches Negril will gain 70 more suites next year and Sandals Grand Riviera in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, is to be overhauled and renamed.
At Sandals Royal Caribbean in Jamaica, plans are in progress for five over-the-water villas - never before seen in the Caribbean - which are slated to open in 2015.
Having been inspired by the water-villas in the Maldives on his honeymoon some years ago, Stewart is convinced these novel suites are “the future”.
“Once Jamaica has approved the concept, we expect other Caribbean islands to follow suit,” he says.
“There’s a buzz about our training and development programme - we’re renowned for that in the Caribbean”
Stewart admits there are also two entirely new destinations on the cards: he’s “in talks” with the Cayman Islands, he confirms, though “the conversation has gone a little quiet” at the moment. He is tight-lipped on the second new destination, but rumours suggest it to be Aruba.
He emphasises that any future expansion will be steady. “We’ve never been a company that builds multiple hotels at one time - we’re concerned about moving faster than we should.”
It’s not only the product that has steered Sandals to its current position, though. Stewart tells agents at the Unveilings that “Sandals looks after people”, and there certainly seems to be “no limit” to its support of its travel agent partners.
The Unveilings, which attracted more than 1,200 agents over three nights, and were attended by senior members of the US and Caribbean teams, are testament to its commitment to the trade. A comprehensive marketing platform that allows agents to send automatic direct mail, emails and social media posts is the latest development to help agents sell.
It’s clear Sandals looks after its own people as well, with two of the team at the UK Unveilings a case in point: vice-president of sales Gary Sadler, who joined Sandals as a “playmaker”, and Sandals Halcyon general manager Lennox Dupal who started in reservations. When searching for new staff in Barbados, Stewart is proud that 6,500 people turned up to Sandals’ recruitment fair.
“There’s a buzz about our training and development programme - we’re renowned for that in the Caribbean,” he says.
Sandals looks after its most loyal guests too. At the London Unveiling, top returning guest Terry Nickless, who has spent more than 800 nights in-resort, was honoured with a free trip to the new Barbados hotel for himself and his daughter. Following the death of his wife, and at the request of the staff, Nickless is now one of the few guests Sandals will allow to stay at resort on his own.
Local commitment
Critics have said the one thing all-inclusive resorts such as Sandals do not look after is the communities and environment in their local area, preventing locals from benefiting from tourist revenue, with a mass approach that creates more wastage than traditional hotels.
Stewart argues that all-inclusive resorts do in fact bring greater revenue to local businesses, since they tend to run at higher year-round occupancy than other hotels.
Sister company Island Routes ran 400,000 tours and activities last year, helping guests and non-guests to leave their hotels and spend money with local providers. He’s seen a shift in guest behaviour in the past few years too: “[All-inclusive hotels] were all doing an aggressive job to get people to go out and see things but we’re not swimming upstream anymore; they want to go out now.”
Resorts such as his, with large tour desks and regular excursions, can in fact make it easier for guests to get out than in smaller hotels without the infrastructure, he suggests.
Whatever your stance on all-inclusive hotels, the achievements of the Sandals Foundation, established by Stewart five years ago, are undeniably impressive.
The foundation, now also a registered charity, has raised £12 million in “cash and kind” - £3 million in cash by guests and others, plus many hours of volunteer time and donated goods.
“We’ve improved the lives of 200,000 Caribbean nationals since it was set up,” he reports, including building three new schools and supporting 28 more. Last year alone, the foundation distributed 18,000 pairs of glasses and gave dental treatment to 40,000 people.
He is proud of what the foundation has achieved. “People said, ‘you sell a Utopia; the people who come to your hotels don’t want to know about the issues you have in the Caribbean’. But I fundamentally disagree,” he insists. “And with five more hotels in the pipeline, we can do even more.”
He’s convinced the agents who sell Sandals care about those issues too, and includes a foundation update in his Unveilings address.
When he returns to the stage in Heathrow for the final Unveiling of the week, it is to an equally uproarious welcome as he received further north.
“The closer you look, the better we look,” he tells the cheering audience.
And whether that’s in terms of trade support, charity projects or the product itself, the 1,230 agents at the Unveilings certainly seem to need no more convincing.
