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Sandals' Luxe Life
A slightly edited version of a story published in the October 15 edition of Travel Agent magazine.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
These are the surface elements of a family business in growth mode, one that has evolved from a single property in Montego Bay more than 26 years ago to a full-scale resort company that now offers 12 Sandals Resorts, four Beaches Resorts and two Royal Plantation Resorts across five Caribbean islands.
At the core of this business are three members of the Stewart family whose goal it is to keep moving the existing product to an even higher level of luxury, while keeping an eye on new initiatives.
Sandals chairman Gordon 'Butch' Stewart
As a result, it's not often that these three can be found together in one room, and so Travel Agent was especially pleased to be able to catch up with Butch, Adam and Jaime recently on Fowl Cay in the Exumas down in the Bahamas, where we spent a rainy afternoon discussing the intricacies of running a family business that has become an empire of sorts.
The Stewarts acquired Fowl Cay earlier this year after they'd discovered it on a family boating trip. Comprised of five villas, a gourmet restaurant and a clubhouse, the resort is being re-branded as Royal Plantation Island, continuing on the success of the luxe Royal Plantation property in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. (There are plans for that brand to grow, as well.) The Stewarts say working on the resort is a hobby and a labour of love for them, and indeed on this day it felt more like a cozy family enclave in an idyllic setting.
The most striking aspect of our discussion that day on Fowl Cay was how keenly each of the Stewarts listens to the other. They finish each other's sentences, expand on one another's thoughts and compliment each other with just a little bit of ribbing that befits any family trio comprised of a brother, sister and adoring and respected father.
The players are as follows: Gordon 'Butch' Stewart is chairman of the Montego Bay, Jamaica-based Sandals Resorts International (SRI). Jaime Stewart-McConnell, his daughter, lives in Kingston, Jamaica, and is the managing director of Royal Plantation, Ocho Rios, and a director of SRI. Adam Stewart, his son, is the newly named CEO of SRI. The SRI headquarters provides a centralised operations centre with divisions that mirror the departments at each of the hotels, such as food and beverage, security, rooms, etc. Essential business strategies and practices are determined in this location, leaving the resorts with the sole duty of providing a stellar experience for its guests.
Jaime Stewart-McConnell, managing director of Royal Plantation, Ocho Rios, and a director of SRI, and her brother Adam Stewart, CEO of Sandals Resorts International.
When Travel Agent asked how the duties of the family trio are truly divided, both Adam and Jaime nod to their father. "He's our chairman," says Adam. "The majority of the trust and leadership and the creativity of the organisation come from him more than I think the world understands. And that goes for promotions and marketing. It goes for master planning and function development on property, new concepts of restaurants and themes and the architecture."
Having said that, the three admit that theirs is very much a joint effort when it comes to determining business strategies. "What is pretty unique about the organisation is that there's never really a decision that's just made by one person," says Adam. "It's very much who you see here plus all the people we work with. We take the best of the best from each department."
While one might assume that the Stewart siblings are fairly new to the hotel business because of their obvious youth (they're both under 30), the fact is, they've been involved in it virtually all their lives.
"We started pouring coffee for daddy at six. We've been in it forever," says Jaime, who is credited with elevating the luxurious Royal Plantation in Ocho Rios to the acceptance standards of The Leading Hotels of the World. "It has never been difficult, because we love the hotels. It's never been a job. It's what we do."
"We always travelled with dad to the resorts," Adam echoes. "I was 13 years old the first year we won the World Travel Awards and I remember I didn't have a tuxedo, and we went and bought me a tuxedo for it. Remember that?" he asks his father. "I was 13 years old. I was very excited to go, but at that time I didn't understand just how important it was for me, but I do when I look back now."
Running a Tight Operation
Prior to being named CEO of SRI a year ago, Adam was director of resort product, responsible for all on-property operations and revenues, including the photo shops, gift boutiques, in-room television system and telephone and Internet capabilities across the company's three major brands: Sandals Resorts, Beaches Resorts and Royal Plantation.
As CEO, he is now charged with ensuring that Sandals runs a successful business while offering a seamless luxury experience to its clientele. Or, to put it in his words: "The sole purpose of the Montego Bay office is to make the daily operations - and therefore the experience of the guests - better every day, because tomorrow must be a better day than today."
Agent Support
"What Adam has been able to do on the ground is look at everything within the walls of all the hotels with fresh eyes, young eyes, educated eyes," Jaime tells Travel Agent. "He cut out a lot of old habits that either wasted time or lost money, and he either comes out with new procedures to do something faster and better and more profitably or to get rid of it or to just rethink the whole thing altogether."
Case in point: Adam and Jaime one day were walking through the lobby of one of their hotels when they noted that the check-in process was taking too long. They enlisted their IT department to speed up the process; in the end, a best-practices policy was implemented that ensures guests will receive their room keys within eight minutes of stepping out of their vehicle after they arrive. "It's just a small detail; guests may not even realise they didn't have to go through the longer check in," says Adam.
Jaime also gives her brother points for his leadership capabilities. "He has an ability to get the entire team, and the entire company, behind him. He's like his father," she says. "He's very inspiring when he speaks to you, very motivating, and these days he'll very quickly give everyone on the ground in our hotels a second wind and even a third wind."
Adam in turn quickly turns it back to the employees of Sandals, many of whom he's known for all of his young life. "It's the people on top of every department; that's where the drive comes from. Every day they're trying to see what the world is doing, and we're trying to stay ahead of the curve," he says, noting that "the majority of the people who we work with today have been around 20-plus years."
For these reasons, Jaime feels that the family business extends far beyond the reaches of the three people in the room at the moment. "It's always been a family company in the bigger sense of the word," she says. "It's not about the family in this room. When the ownership is private and there's the personal interest of the owners, it resonates," she continues. "You're not dealing with a board of directors that makes decisions from New York, who have no love and no passion and no heart going into the hotel. We're all one team. We're all on the same level."
Nodding to her father, Jaime explains that when he's making an important business decision, he'll often call a housekeeper at a hotel or a web designer into his office to get their opinion.
"Everyone's opinion matters," says Adam, "and I really think that goes a long way, too, in terms of the entire team feeling that they're a part of it. But that's how we all operate. I admit it makes us unique; our employees inspire us and in some way I hope we inspire them."
Staff Training Makes the Difference
Anyone who has been to a Sandals property knows that it's often the employees of the resort who make the visit memorable. It could be the limo driver who speaks of the pride he takes in working for a company with a strong vision or it could be the restaurant attendant who intuitively walks over and clears out the holes of a salt shaker that have been clogged by the humid tropical air when she sees a guest is struggling with it.
While some of this is serendipitous, not much is left to chance, for under the surface, Sandals has an intense training programme that mandates that every employee take 120 hours of training a year. At least one instructor stays on site at each hotel all year and specialists are brought in to mentor those in specific roles, such as sales. Management ensures that the process is enjoyable and appealing, supplying music, cookies, whatever it takes to get the job done.
Right now, Adam is upgrading the training programme "for no other odd reason than I think we can take it to the next level", he says.
The guest experience is seamless throughout the Sandals system for other reasons. Another sibling, Bobby, oversees the company's IT department: He has created a system that allows all of Sandals' systems to "speak to each other," from reservations to property management to accounting. Part of that effort has resulted in an enviable guest-recognition system that enables Sandals to store guest preferences electronically. Bottom line? If one resort knows you like a vodka and soda, the next one you check into will know it as well.
Luxury Included
When asked about the evolution of his service philosophy, which actually took shape 40 years ago when he launched an air-conditioner service and distribution company in Jamaica, Butch Stewart says that it all goes back to the fundamentals: "Just do every somersault you can to make sure that your customer is happy," he says, having been quiet until now, although he's been watching his children with smiling eyes.
"We're not perfect by any means; in fact, we are all probably our own biggest critics. Sometimes I think that not having a hospitality background was probably the best thing, because we didn't know what level we wanted to be at. By wanting to be the best, we probably overdid it in many ways. Now it's a question of modernising it, doing all the various things that enhance our different services, whether it's room service, cocktail service or maybe it's getting good shopping on a property. It can be anything. It's all about the refinement process."
Talk about modernising; what Sandals is doing now is downright revolutionary when it comes to all-inclusive offerings. The company has launched what it calls the "Luxury Included Vacation" throughout its entire system. Key elements of the "signature" experience at Sandals now include exclusive dining options and partnerships with celebrity designers Preston Bailey and Sylvia Weinstock, Rolls Royce, the London-based Guild of Professional English Butlers, Beringer Wines, Waterford Crystal and Red Lane Spa.
The first resort to highlight the new programme is Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa, which just opened its new, all-suite Mediterranean Village on October 4, a US$70 million expansion to the resort's existing 193-room Caribbean Village. The Mediterranean Village has 180 suites in six room categories, all with ocean views.
Sandals has similarly placed a huge emphasis on suites at its other properties, such as Sandals Grande St Lucian, Sandals Regency in St Lucia, Sandals Negril and Sandals Royal Caribbean, both in Jamaica, and Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort & Offshore Island.
"We've watched the luxury trend very carefully and have transformed the suites at Sandals, investing over $200 million in the last three years alone to meet these demands," says Butch. "Across the Sandals brand, suites comprise 44 per cent of all room inventories - well above industry standard. As our company has evolved, so too has the Sandals Resorts customer."
While these initiatives have been huge undertakings, there's more in the works. The Sandals chairman hints that the company has a "good size of developments on the way", but also cautions that growth has to be controlled, even though he's approached daily with offers to expand internationally in regions such as Greece and even Dubai. "Whether we stay in the Caribbean or we go further away, it's not going to be done at a pace that we can't keep track of things," he says.
And while he's not ruling out the possibility of international expansion, he does not see the Sandals product ever being franchised, meaning the company will always maintain ownership and management of its properties. "It's too personalised," he insists.
Butch also agrees with the concept of keeping it all in the family, confirming that "a lot of the people who make up the organisation are personal friends," he says, "so the atmosphere is that we are on each other's side."
At the same time, Stewart doesn't lose track of the fact that his closest family is inside this cottage, on a remote island where the sun is just finally beginning to appear from behind the clouds.
"They've been good kids that didn't get into much trouble," he says, grinning at Jaime and Adam.
A slightly edited version of a story published in the October 15 edition of Travel Agent magazine.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
These are the surface elements of a family business in growth mode, one that has evolved from a single property in Montego Bay more than 26 years ago to a full-scale resort company that now offers 12 Sandals Resorts, four Beaches Resorts and two Royal Plantation Resorts across five Caribbean islands.
At the core of this business are three members of the Stewart family whose goal it is to keep moving the existing product to an even higher level of luxury, while keeping an eye on new initiatives.
Sandals chairman Gordon 'Butch' Stewart As a result, it's not often that these three can be found together in one room, and so Travel Agent was especially pleased to be able to catch up with Butch, Adam and Jaime recently on Fowl Cay in the Exumas down in the Bahamas, where we spent a rainy afternoon discussing the intricacies of running a family business that has become an empire of sorts.
The Stewarts acquired Fowl Cay earlier this year after they'd discovered it on a family boating trip. Comprised of five villas, a gourmet restaurant and a clubhouse, the resort is being re-branded as Royal Plantation Island, continuing on the success of the luxe Royal Plantation property in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. (There are plans for that brand to grow, as well.) The Stewarts say working on the resort is a hobby and a labour of love for them, and indeed on this day it felt more like a cozy family enclave in an idyllic setting.
The most striking aspect of our discussion that day on Fowl Cay was how keenly each of the Stewarts listens to the other. They finish each other's sentences, expand on one another's thoughts and compliment each other with just a little bit of ribbing that befits any family trio comprised of a brother, sister and adoring and respected father.
The players are as follows: Gordon 'Butch' Stewart is chairman of the Montego Bay, Jamaica-based Sandals Resorts International (SRI). Jaime Stewart-McConnell, his daughter, lives in Kingston, Jamaica, and is the managing director of Royal Plantation, Ocho Rios, and a director of SRI. Adam Stewart, his son, is the newly named CEO of SRI. The SRI headquarters provides a centralised operations centre with divisions that mirror the departments at each of the hotels, such as food and beverage, security, rooms, etc. Essential business strategies and practices are determined in this location, leaving the resorts with the sole duty of providing a stellar experience for its guests.
Jaime Stewart-McConnell, managing director of Royal Plantation, Ocho Rios, and a director of SRI, and her brother Adam Stewart, CEO of Sandals Resorts International. When Travel Agent asked how the duties of the family trio are truly divided, both Adam and Jaime nod to their father. "He's our chairman," says Adam. "The majority of the trust and leadership and the creativity of the organisation come from him more than I think the world understands. And that goes for promotions and marketing. It goes for master planning and function development on property, new concepts of restaurants and themes and the architecture."
Having said that, the three admit that theirs is very much a joint effort when it comes to determining business strategies. "What is pretty unique about the organisation is that there's never really a decision that's just made by one person," says Adam. "It's very much who you see here plus all the people we work with. We take the best of the best from each department."
While one might assume that the Stewart siblings are fairly new to the hotel business because of their obvious youth (they're both under 30), the fact is, they've been involved in it virtually all their lives.
"We started pouring coffee for daddy at six. We've been in it forever," says Jaime, who is credited with elevating the luxurious Royal Plantation in Ocho Rios to the acceptance standards of The Leading Hotels of the World. "It has never been difficult, because we love the hotels. It's never been a job. It's what we do."
"We always travelled with dad to the resorts," Adam echoes. "I was 13 years old the first year we won the World Travel Awards and I remember I didn't have a tuxedo, and we went and bought me a tuxedo for it. Remember that?" he asks his father. "I was 13 years old. I was very excited to go, but at that time I didn't understand just how important it was for me, but I do when I look back now."
Running a Tight Operation
Prior to being named CEO of SRI a year ago, Adam was director of resort product, responsible for all on-property operations and revenues, including the photo shops, gift boutiques, in-room television system and telephone and Internet capabilities across the company's three major brands: Sandals Resorts, Beaches Resorts and Royal Plantation.
As CEO, he is now charged with ensuring that Sandals runs a successful business while offering a seamless luxury experience to its clientele. Or, to put it in his words: "The sole purpose of the Montego Bay office is to make the daily operations - and therefore the experience of the guests - better every day, because tomorrow must be a better day than today."
Agent Support
"What Adam has been able to do on the ground is look at everything within the walls of all the hotels with fresh eyes, young eyes, educated eyes," Jaime tells Travel Agent. "He cut out a lot of old habits that either wasted time or lost money, and he either comes out with new procedures to do something faster and better and more profitably or to get rid of it or to just rethink the whole thing altogether."
Case in point: Adam and Jaime one day were walking through the lobby of one of their hotels when they noted that the check-in process was taking too long. They enlisted their IT department to speed up the process; in the end, a best-practices policy was implemented that ensures guests will receive their room keys within eight minutes of stepping out of their vehicle after they arrive. "It's just a small detail; guests may not even realise they didn't have to go through the longer check in," says Adam.
Jaime also gives her brother points for his leadership capabilities. "He has an ability to get the entire team, and the entire company, behind him. He's like his father," she says. "He's very inspiring when he speaks to you, very motivating, and these days he'll very quickly give everyone on the ground in our hotels a second wind and even a third wind."
Adam in turn quickly turns it back to the employees of Sandals, many of whom he's known for all of his young life. "It's the people on top of every department; that's where the drive comes from. Every day they're trying to see what the world is doing, and we're trying to stay ahead of the curve," he says, noting that "the majority of the people who we work with today have been around 20-plus years."
For these reasons, Jaime feels that the family business extends far beyond the reaches of the three people in the room at the moment. "It's always been a family company in the bigger sense of the word," she says. "It's not about the family in this room. When the ownership is private and there's the personal interest of the owners, it resonates," she continues. "You're not dealing with a board of directors that makes decisions from New York, who have no love and no passion and no heart going into the hotel. We're all one team. We're all on the same level."
Nodding to her father, Jaime explains that when he's making an important business decision, he'll often call a housekeeper at a hotel or a web designer into his office to get their opinion.
"Everyone's opinion matters," says Adam, "and I really think that goes a long way, too, in terms of the entire team feeling that they're a part of it. But that's how we all operate. I admit it makes us unique; our employees inspire us and in some way I hope we inspire them."
Staff Training Makes the Difference
Anyone who has been to a Sandals property knows that it's often the employees of the resort who make the visit memorable. It could be the limo driver who speaks of the pride he takes in working for a company with a strong vision or it could be the restaurant attendant who intuitively walks over and clears out the holes of a salt shaker that have been clogged by the humid tropical air when she sees a guest is struggling with it.
While some of this is serendipitous, not much is left to chance, for under the surface, Sandals has an intense training programme that mandates that every employee take 120 hours of training a year. At least one instructor stays on site at each hotel all year and specialists are brought in to mentor those in specific roles, such as sales. Management ensures that the process is enjoyable and appealing, supplying music, cookies, whatever it takes to get the job done.
Right now, Adam is upgrading the training programme "for no other odd reason than I think we can take it to the next level", he says.
The guest experience is seamless throughout the Sandals system for other reasons. Another sibling, Bobby, oversees the company's IT department: He has created a system that allows all of Sandals' systems to "speak to each other," from reservations to property management to accounting. Part of that effort has resulted in an enviable guest-recognition system that enables Sandals to store guest preferences electronically. Bottom line? If one resort knows you like a vodka and soda, the next one you check into will know it as well.
Luxury Included
When asked about the evolution of his service philosophy, which actually took shape 40 years ago when he launched an air-conditioner service and distribution company in Jamaica, Butch Stewart says that it all goes back to the fundamentals: "Just do every somersault you can to make sure that your customer is happy," he says, having been quiet until now, although he's been watching his children with smiling eyes.
"We're not perfect by any means; in fact, we are all probably our own biggest critics. Sometimes I think that not having a hospitality background was probably the best thing, because we didn't know what level we wanted to be at. By wanting to be the best, we probably overdid it in many ways. Now it's a question of modernising it, doing all the various things that enhance our different services, whether it's room service, cocktail service or maybe it's getting good shopping on a property. It can be anything. It's all about the refinement process."
Talk about modernising; what Sandals is doing now is downright revolutionary when it comes to all-inclusive offerings. The company has launched what it calls the "Luxury Included Vacation" throughout its entire system. Key elements of the "signature" experience at Sandals now include exclusive dining options and partnerships with celebrity designers Preston Bailey and Sylvia Weinstock, Rolls Royce, the London-based Guild of Professional English Butlers, Beringer Wines, Waterford Crystal and Red Lane Spa.
The first resort to highlight the new programme is Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa, which just opened its new, all-suite Mediterranean Village on October 4, a US$70 million expansion to the resort's existing 193-room Caribbean Village. The Mediterranean Village has 180 suites in six room categories, all with ocean views.
Sandals has similarly placed a huge emphasis on suites at its other properties, such as Sandals Grande St Lucian, Sandals Regency in St Lucia, Sandals Negril and Sandals Royal Caribbean, both in Jamaica, and Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort & Offshore Island.
"We've watched the luxury trend very carefully and have transformed the suites at Sandals, investing over $200 million in the last three years alone to meet these demands," says Butch. "Across the Sandals brand, suites comprise 44 per cent of all room inventories - well above industry standard. As our company has evolved, so too has the Sandals Resorts customer."
While these initiatives have been huge undertakings, there's more in the works. The Sandals chairman hints that the company has a "good size of developments on the way", but also cautions that growth has to be controlled, even though he's approached daily with offers to expand internationally in regions such as Greece and even Dubai. "Whether we stay in the Caribbean or we go further away, it's not going to be done at a pace that we can't keep track of things," he says.
And while he's not ruling out the possibility of international expansion, he does not see the Sandals product ever being franchised, meaning the company will always maintain ownership and management of its properties. "It's too personalised," he insists.
Butch also agrees with the concept of keeping it all in the family, confirming that "a lot of the people who make up the organisation are personal friends," he says, "so the atmosphere is that we are on each other's side."
At the same time, Stewart doesn't lose track of the fact that his closest family is inside this cottage, on a remote island where the sun is just finally beginning to appear from behind the clouds.
"They've been good kids that didn't get into much trouble," he says, grinning at Jaime and Adam.
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