History and Background
In 1981, Gordon "Butch" Stewart, a young entrepreneur with no hotel experience, saw the potential in a piece of waterfront land in Jamaica. He bought the property, Bay Roc, renovated and expanded it. The rooms got dramatic facelifts, and Stewart decided to rent them to couples only. Sandals Montego Bay opened for business. Sandals unveiled its first swim-up pool bar in 1985, which allowed guests to order drinks without leaving the water. The resort also unveiled amenities like fine dining, a choice of indoor or outdoor meals, whirlpools, fitness centers, piano bars, water skiing and scuba diving. To date there are 15 Luxury Included Sandals Resorts located throughout the Caribbean including Jamaica, The Bahamas, Grenada,…show more content… They employ guest coordinators, trained to be experts in human relations, to make guests feel at home, coordinating the guest activities and making sure that everything works the way it should. They practice TQM throughout all levels of staff. Sandals is the leader in the field of sustainable practices.
Among the steps it has taken to reduce its environmental impact are the harvesting of well water in order to reduce the demand on the municipal supply, a commercial laundry facility which washes linen for all three resorts in St. Lucia which drastically reduces water and energy usage, water from ice machines is recycled and used for irrigation, paper, cardboard, glass and plastic bottles are recycled, solar technology is used for piped water and swimming pool heating.
Communicating their involvement in sustainable development has been one of their weaknesses. For instance, Sandal’s beach resort received a Green Globe Certification for commitment to natural resources, but they don’t advertise or communicate it. In this economic downturn, people want to feel good about spending their money in socially responsible ways and the Green Globe Certification is highly prestigious. As with all tourist destinations, they are dependent on a healthy economy in countries whose citizens have more discretionary income to spend, and vacation regularly. The American…show more content… Our experience in weddings is unmatched and there is no all-inclusive chain that has more experience in marrying people than Sandals. Another example is in training. Sandal underwrites over 4,000 of its staff in education. There is a corporate university that is an internationally accredited university that educates people combining education with practical training. Every employee must complete at least 120 hours of training every year. Even reading writing and language skills are taught and every hotel has a campus. Another example is Scuba Diving, where Sandals is rated in the top 5 most powerful organization of all dive operators in the world by the PADI organization. Most other places are outsourcing the dive operations to some local guy and you don’t know about the quality, safety and inspections. All this contribute to creating an attitude within an organization of service. So when you look at other groups that don’t have the infrastructure to manage that, there is a difference and there is no competitors in the all-inclusive set that can stand next to Sandals in terms of human