Since January 1, 2025 – the first day of the First Quarter of Century 21 — the world has been adjusting to the launch of the latest new phase in the impressive history of the Caribbean’s most successful tourism and hospitality brand, Sandals Resorts International (SRI), which has launched an up-market rebranding campaign that further highlights its character as a primary global Caribbean product.
After four-plus decades testing waters, purchasing old and building new properties and eventually transforming the very nature of holidaying in the Caribbean by visitors from all corners of the world under the leadership of Founding Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, SRI has in Century 21 unfolded its veritable Second Coming through ‘Sandals 2.0’.
As if to again demonstrate SRI’s continuing resilience in the face of challenges and opportunities initiated under the legendary Founding Chairman, his son and successor, Adam, as Executive Chairman and CEO, started 2025, launching the new ‘Made of Caribbean’ brand in the Caribbean and the USA.
By mid-April, Adam Stewart hit New York with a typical SRI mass introductory event that saw the young steward of the family’s business bloom SRI’s reputation with visits to Bloomberg and the New York Stock Exchange, also booming the brand by riding around The Big Apple in Sandals-branded vehicles.
A promotional video shows the SRI CEO enjoying his usual Jamaican self, selling a Caribbean-made product that’s flown the region’s flags top-mast for almost all of the four-plus decades since its first hotel opened at Montego Bay in 1981.
Sandals MoBay was followed by six other luxury SRI properties in Jamaica (Ochi, South Coast, Royal Plantation, Negril, Royal Caribbean and Dunn’s River), three in Saint Lucia (Regency La Toc, Halcyon Beach, Grande Saint Lucian), two in Barbados (Sandals Barbados and Royal Barbados), one each in Antigua (Grande Antigua), The Bahamas (Royal Bahamian), Curacao (Royal Curacao), Grenada (Sandals Grenada) and the latest in Saint Vincent & The Grenadines (Sandals SVG).
At 44, SRI has grown from one to 17 adult-only, all-inclusive luxury ‘Sandals’ properties in seven Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations and Dutch-speaking Curacao – and that’s apart from the family-oriented ‘Beaches’ resorts also managed by SRI in Jamaica and the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI).
Beaches TCI, Sandals Royal Curacao, Sandals Dunn’s River and Sandals SVG launched SRI’s entry into the Sandals ‘2.0’ age, while Saint Vincent’s over-30 ‘Grenadines’ island chain joins fellow properties in The Bahamas, Curacao, Grenada and TCI that also offer multi-island destinations.
Sandals’ extraordinary propulsion machine seems inexhaustible: in Q1 of 2025, SRI announced early plans for a second property in SVG, while the Executive Chairman and CEO flew to Tobago in April to reiterate the chain’s continuing interest in establishing a presence in the twin-island republic.
Adam Stewart and SRI have, over the past year, also demonstrated a capacity to face challenges while always keeping their eyes on the ultimate prize.
In 2024, a shareholders’ dispute brought unfavourable news headlines to Jamaica’s First Family of Tourism.
A CARICOM leader started 2025 with a barrage of unhealthy criticism against SRI that would later haunt him, while other colleagues kept inviting Stewart and SRI to invest – or add to existing properties.
There have also been acknowledgements by the regional media that SRI is among the most successful Caribbean businesses of all time, with published speculation that its value on the US stock exchange market can be over US $ US$7 billion.
But as a family business that’s survived everything from initial opposition to its all-inclusive vacationing model in the 1980s through to COVID-19 after 2020, SRI has been able to maintain its place as the Caribbean’s leading hotel and tourism chain.
With over 20,000 employees, SRI remains today’s largest hotel and tourism industry employer regionally and contributes the highest to government taxes, while increasing tourism airlift to every new destination — as already experienced by Saint Vincent & the Grenadines.
With an integrated supply chain marrying ever-changing models that keep attracting both travel advisors and growing lists of repeated guests, SRI has also been on a constant renovation reset that peaked with COVID and continues with annual unveiling of earlier promised expansions and renovations of existing properties.
Sandals University — in cooperation with The University of The West Indies (The UWI) and Florida International University (FIU) — has been sharpening SRI’s management and staff skills at certified levels.
There’s also a quiet but loud expression of gender parity at SRI properties, with most of the chain’s financial controllers being women (who grew with Sandals), and boasting the first woman at the helm of a major property: Sandals Grande Saint Lucian.
The ‘Made of Caribbean’ brand launched in 2025 certifies SRI as the region’s primary provider of memorable visitor experiences for people from all corners of the world.
The latest campaign’s New York launch featured all the ‘everything included’ aspects associated with Sandals campaigns, introducing everything from new properties to new vacations for visitors seeking memorable holidays in a Caribbean tropical paradise.
Travel agencies continue promoting SRI in all corners of the globe — from Australia and Brazil to China, Canada and California, from Iceland, India and Sri Lanka to Switzerland and South Africa, from Turkey to Turkmenistan, Ethiopia to England, the UK to the USA, Zambia to Zimbabwe.
In addition, the Sandals Foundation (in just ten years) has found ways to marry SRI’s presence everywhere with support for enlightening and enabling social, cultural, sporting, environmental protection and other programs that benefit communities across the region.
Under Adam Stewart’s stewardship, Sandals has planted its footprints deeper into the sands of Caribbean beaches, in ways probably imagined (or no less expected) when the Founding Chairman gathered the clan at the end of his day, to name his chosen successor.
And as if to show that all challenges always bring equal opportunities, the Caribbean’s most successful tourism and hospitality chain has claimed its rightful place as the Number One global business brand this region has produced: Caribbean-made — with luxury included!