Any unique global brand like Sandals Resorts International (SRI) needs an equally-unique holiday planner to sell the unforgettable dream vacations to fill the thousands of luxury-included rooms, suites and seaside or sky-rising bungalows in its dozens of incomparable Caribbean beach resorts – and keep guests returning, again-and-again.
For decades, Unique Vacations Inc. (UVI) has been that special connection between the best hotels and holiday vacations on this side of Planet Earth.
As UVI’s CEO Jeff Clarke told 361 international travel agents and advisers in mid-May in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), the four years since COVID-19 in 2020 have seen the group overcome all the stormy weather that followed the pandemic.
Where other hotels quickly shut down under COVID pressure, SRI – under the wise and determined leadership of Founding Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, decided to buck the trend and take the pandemic head-on.
As Clarke recalled, ‘Butch’ insisted Sandals doors should remain open and travel agents needed to be kept engaged and rewarded to keep selling Sandals vacations while he used the down-time to upgrade and upscale each property.
‘Butch’ Stewart had no intention of letting SRI be overcome by what he was sure was a temporary phenomenon, no matter how bad, that would eventually pass – and Sandals would be ready and ahead.
Clarke noted that after the Founding Chairman’s untimely passing in January 2021, SRI, under the leadership of his son and chosen successor Adam, poured untold amounts into investing in the Founding Chairman’s confidence in the Caribbean and resilience of its people.
Handpicked for the mission just weeks before his dad’s passing and ultimate passage, Adam and SRI developed the COVID protection protocols for guests and staff that were eventually adopted by the region’s tourism industry.
Adam would fulfil his dad’s dream of establishing the Sandals Corporate University (SCU) and continuing to train and employ thousands across the Caribbean, while acquiring new properties and relentlessly building new and better resorts.
Sandals rode-out the COVID nightmare unveiling new hotels every year, starting with a Beaches resort in the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI) in 2021, Royal Sandals in Curacao in 2022, Dunn’s River (Phase One) in Jamaica in 2023 and Buccament Bay in SVG.
And new Sandals and Beaches resorts are on the cards for the near-future in Barbados and Jamaica, while existing resorts in all nine Caribbean nations continue to fine-tune the concept of offering unique vacations unavailable anywhere else.
Executive Chair Adam Stewart has also led SRI into that new, bold, adventurous and successful ride into the new and still-unfolding ‘Sandals 2.0.’ era.
Between Beaches TCI and Sandals SVG, the ‘2.0’ brand has been widening SRI’s long-held lead established by the unique organizational partnership between SRI and UVI – one building the world’s best Caribbean hotels and the other selling its unique holiday vacations.
UVI operates out of New York and attracts vacationers from The Americas (North, South and Central) and Europe, Africa and China, the Far and Middle East, the Asian and Indo-Pacific region, as far ‘Down Under’ in Australia and New Zealand – and from the Caribbean and its worldwide Diaspora.
UVI is also partly powered by its Executive Vice President for Sales and Industry Relations Gary Sadler.
Regarded as UVI’s mouth and face in the global tourism marketplace, the branded Jamaican salesman started his long and successful career relationship with SRI as a playmaker at a Beaches resort in 1988.
His personal contribution to Jamaica’s tourism earned him the nation’s Order of Distinction (Officer Class) on its ‘Heroes Day’ in 2017.
SRI’s ‘Butch’ Stewart paid tribute to Sadler back then, telling the honouring ceremony: “Sandals owes Gary a great deal… and the award could not have gone to a better man…”
Sadler loudly trumpets SRI’s continuing role as the largest private multinational Caribbean tourism and travel entity with 24 (Sandals and Beaches) luxury resort properties in nine Caribbean territories, boasting 243 restaurants and employing over 20,000.
Sandals and UVI deliver the highest number of visitors to the Caribbean all-year-round, keeping regional airlift flying sky-high by engaging with the largest number of airlines from Europe, Canada, the USA — and the Caribbean.
SRI pays the highest government taxes in the hotel industry almost everywhere it operates, creating new jobs and opportunities across the region and ensuring local tourism entities also get their share of the Sandals pie.
Over 14,500 staff get free access to SCU, with professional early-learning opportunities in safe environments made available for children of single-parent resort staff.
Sadler and UVI – and the over 100 staff in Miami – don’t need to but ensure they constantly remind travel agents of the continuing benefits of doing business selling SRI’s unique vacations.
The hundreds of travel advisors invited and flown to SVG for the mid-May 2024 Sandals Travel Advisors Rewards (STAR) ceremony applauded Sadler’s every catchy phrase as he explained why SRI continues to treat them as “the movers and shakers of the industry”, the veritable engines of the hotel industry’s growth.
He asserted UVI is “the best anywhere” – and Chairman Adam Stewart is “the best leader in the global tourism industry today,”, as a result of which SRI and UVI together “fill the most hotels in the world…”
Sadler assured the travel agents both entities “will continue working with the American Association of Travel Advisers (ASTA),” to protect their interests as partners and service providers, come what may.
The Executive Chair gave a very-detailed account of SRI’s development in the post-Butch/post-COVID era, pointing to its resilience in the past three years, revealing plans for more and better over the next three – and reiterating Sandals’ ever-readiness to continue working with the travel agents and advisers.
And as he closed, the overall Chairman of the Boards turned and looked Sadler in the eyes and said — to the overwhelming applause: “Gary, you won’t be allowed to retire — ever!”
Judgment was delivered by the brand’s ‘Capo Di Tutti Capi’– and for once, Gary Sadler had no response!