Sandals chief: 'Agents have found a higher calling'

“Tourism, ahead of any other industry, acted maturely and comprehensively,” says Stewart. “We banded together and did one heck of a job. There was this odd two-week period when the hotels closed and nothing happened. Then the Zoom calls started, from 7am to 11pm every day, as we wrote protocols, formed pathways and worked with our governments.

“The news said the world was falling apart. But when I looked outside, everything was more naturally beautiful than ever. For about a year, I lived the mantra ‘this will pass’. I’ll never give up on the mindset that people, one day, will want to get together with loved ones and experience the most beautiful parts of the world.”

Albeit almost a distant memory, 2019 was Sandals’ best year ever. And although Stewart recognises Covid has left some people wondering if they will ever travel again, Sandals’ demand for September and October 2021 – which Stewart said were usually slower due to children going back to school – is 151% ahead of September and October 2019.

“Demand is off the scale,” he says. “We’re running out of inventory for autumn and laying immense business for 2022 and 2023. There’s a message in the numbers about the power of travel; nothing is more important than time spent together with family and loved ones.”

Stewart’s father Butch passed away in January aged 79. He would have been 80 on Tuesday (6 July). Born in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, he set up a business selling air conditioning units, but struggled to find ways to make US dollars owing to the country’s socialist administration during the 1970s.

However, he deduced he could earn foreign exchange if he bought a hotel, and so acquired a small property in Montego Bay. “That’s how Sandals was founded,” Stewart tells me, whose journey to succeeding his father started in the 1980s in the company’s mailroom with his sister – posting brochures to travel agents.

“He went into hospitality for all the wrong reasons,” Stewart smiles. “He didn’t aspire to be a hotelier and had no formal training. By the time I was five, we had three Sandals in Montego Bay. In 1988, we went into Ocho Rios and Negril, and by the mid-1990s, I was doing summer jobs for the company. I grew up in this business, and it’s been an incredible journey.

“[My dad] was a visionary, he just saw something bigger for Jamaica, which ultimately turned into something bigger for the Caribbean. It’s the classic self-made story. He developed a brand that put the Caribbean on the world stage.”

’Higher calling’

Stewart said one of his father’s legacies would be his 1983 decision to found a company pension scheme. “Up to 2019 in Jamaica, only 15% of Jamaicans working in tourism had pensions, and 10% came from Sandals. People thought he was insane. He didn’t have to do it, but he did it for the people.”

This philanthropic spirit endures. At the start of the crisis, Sandals bought ventilators and gave over a hotel to the Jamaican government to use as a quarantine centre, free of charge. It produced care packages for staff and retained their full medical benefits.

“It was very important for us to keep our team united,” says Stewart. “Tourism workers who were trained in our Covid protocols went back into their communities and passed on that knowledge organically. It kept Sandals and our customers safe.”

Stewart’s respect and passion for the trade lives up to his father’s ambition to inspire a generation of travel sellers. “He understood the symbiotic relationship between agents and brands like Sandals,” Stewart explains. “It’s why we spend on the sales team, the BDMs, the co-marketing and branding and the training materials. For us, it’s a cost of doing business.

“At the turn of the century, people were saying agents would become extinct. We never bought that argument. Travel agent business with us, as a group, is now outperforming our best year ever.

“Covid has made agents even more powerful. There are, and always will be, consumers who want to speak to a human directly. There are going to be long-term consequences of Covid; I believe on the distribution side, the travel agent has found a higher calling.”