The Sandals ‘army’ versus the might of Melissa

To the hotel empire that he built, the late Gordon “Butch” Stewart has bequeathed a fighting son, every bit as patriotic and determined and every inch of him the visionary he was. In probably his most comprehensive interview on local soil, Adam Stewart, the young executive chairman of multiple award-winning Sandals Resorts International (SRI), sat with Money Media’s Kalilah Reynolds recently and gave Jamaicans an all-embracing view of the man who helms the Caribbean’s leading resort chain. Among the areas he covered, Stewart gave an account of the battle he and his team — ‘the army’ he likes to call them — waged with the mightiest storm Jamaica has faced, Hurricane Melissa, which threw her merciless Category 5 winds at south- and north-western Jamaica last October, leaving devastation yet to be adequately described.

On just three hotels alone Sandals will have to fork out an estimated US$200 million to fix the carnage left by Melissa, he disclosed. But as he had seen his father done so many times before, Stewart grabbed the opportunity to take the resorts to places not even the great Butch had gone before. Aerial rendering of Sandals Montego Bay, showcasing uninterrupted ocean views and a reimaginedbeachfront experience.

Asked what was his reaction when he first toured the battered Sandals South Coast in Westmoreland, Sandals Montego Bay, and Sandals Royal Caribbean in St James, Stewart acknowledged he had hoped not to see the magnitude of the destruction that was to come. “You know, when hurricanes are approaching, there’s always a hope that it won’t actually make landfall or if it does...we’ve had hurricanes in the past that came close and we got away with it. But we saw Melissa’s pressure building and it was just catastrophic to watch what happened in the path of the hurricane,” he recounted.

“Once we got out into the field we saw the destruction in the communities. We saw the destruction to people’s homes and, of course, our various businesses. You just had to stop and sort of, you know, thank the Lord for those who were left unscathed.

“You knew you had to do your part in picking up the pieces for those who were heavily affected, not only our team members in our businesses, but our communities surrounding our fishermen, our farmers, the entire ecosystem of commerce. Rendering of the new signature pool at Sandals Montego Bay, featuring seamless beach co…