Sandals adding 7,000 jobs, expanding beyond Caribbean

Sandals Resorts International plans to grow its workforce by more than a third, adding 7,000 jobs at new hotels, some of them outside the Caribbean, Executive Chairman Adam Stewart said.

“The time has come for us to go further than the four corners of the Caribbean,” Stewart told travel advisors at a briefing last week—after Royal Caribbean Group agreed to buy half the company for about US$3 billion.

“We have 7,000 new jobs that we’re creating for these new hotels,” he said. He gave no breakdown of the jobs by country, project, or timeline. He said he flew to Jamaica after he finalised the deal and addressed team members at a company town hall before the advisors’ briefing. Sandals Resorts states on its LinkedIn page that it employs more than 18,000 people. The new jobs would expand the workforce by 38 per cent.

Royal Caribbean announced on Tuesday that it would acquire a 50 per cent equity stake in Sandals and Beaches Resorts. The deal values the business at US$6 billion, including debt, or about 10 times expected earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA), according to the cruise operator’s investor presentation. Royal Caribbean said it expects the deal to close in early 2027, subject to approvals, and to add to its earnings next year. It will not consolidate Sandals into its accounts.

The two companies will share control, with Stewart and Royal Caribbean President and Chief Executive Officer Jason Liberty jointly leading the board. Stewart will remain executive chairman of Sandals and Beaches.

Sandals operates 18 all-inclusive resorts with about 6,150 rooms across 10 Caribbean countries, seven of them in Jamaica, according to Royal Caribbean. Three more resorts have already been announced. Beaches plans new properties in Exuma in The Bahamas, Barbados, Runaway Bay in Jamaica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Stewart said further announcements would follow.

“There are new hotels, and some of them are gonna come quickly, and some of them are in new destinations. Some of them may be on our doorstep,” he said.

He added that Sandals has begun upgrading its existing resorts, in some cases with “transformational” work worth “hundreds of millions of US dollars”. “Every one of those resorts is being upgraded currently or about to be,” he said. He did not disclose the total cost.

Stewart said Sandals weighed a range of suitors before it chose Royal Caribbean. “We talk to a lot of people looking for the right solution to take this company globally. And we found that solution in Royal Caribbean after talking to the who’s who, so to speak, from private equity to sovereign wealth funds to the biggest hotel companies in the world,” he said.

He said the transaction would not load debt onto Sandals. “This is an all-cash deal. We put no debt on the business. The business has very little debt today,” he said. Royal Caribbean will borrow to fund its side, and said it has secured committed debt financing from Morgan Stanley.

Sandals will keep owning its hotels rather than adopt the asset-light model that most global hotel companies use, in which they manage properties that others own.

“We remain asset-heavy today and into the future. So you don’t have a management company and an asset ownership company fighting each other for what to do in the hotels,” Stewart said.

He rejected speculation that the resorts would become add-ons to Royal Caribbean’s cruise business. “There is no plan for cruise ship passengers to come to our hotels on day passes. That’s not the plan. There are no plans to build a Sandals cruise ship or a Beaches cruise ship,” he said.

Royal Caribbean’s presentation shows why the cruise operator values the link. About 30 per cent of its guests over the past two years also took Caribbean resort or all-inclusive holidays.

Stewart said the brands and management team would stay intact. “Sandals remains Sandals and Beaches remains Beaches,” he said. “Our general managers remain, our sales team remains, everyone remains. This is not a slash and burn. This is a growth platform to grow further and faster.”

He called the strategy “Sandals 3.0”, the next stage for a company his father, Gordon “Butch” Stewart, founded in Montego Bay in 1981.

Steve Griswold, a travel advisor with Pixie Vacations who attended the briefing, said he expects the company to keep the service that built its customer loyalty. “Will the core of Sandals and that ‘No Worries Mon’ feeling and hospitality live on? Yes,” he said.

carolyn.guniss@rjrgleaner.com