The Caribbean tourism sector faced some challenges in 2024, according to Sandals Resorts International executive chairman Adam Stewart, from the heightened demand for European travel to the US presidential election.
But with November being its strongest booking month ever, the company is positioned for what Stewart predicts will be a robust 2025.
With the US election in the rear view mirror, the booking pace picked up materially at the end of last year, providing Sandals with plenty of momentum heading into the new year.
“Now that the election is behind us, the stock market has rallied,” said Stewart. “There’s a relationship between leisure and travel purchases and the stock market. I think 2025 is shaping up to be an amazing year.”
Amid this momentum, Sandals unveiled a brand refresh and multimillion-dollar advertising campaign. Running under the tagline “Made of Caribbean” the campaign debuted in mid-December 2024.
Sandals said the new platform is designed to showcase the company’s deep Caribbean roots while taking on preconceptions consumers might have about the Sandals and Beaches brands.
For example, people might think Sandals is only about honeymoons and weddings when the brand has more to offer, said Stewart.
“We do a lot of weddings, and we do a lot of honeymoons, but we’re way more than that,” Stewart said. “They represent, in the scheme of things, a smaller percentage of who we are.”
The campaign also challenges a stereotype that the all-inclusive experience walls off guests from the outside world. Stewart said Sandals “loves for our customers to go off-property and explore the mountains, the rivers, the offshore islands, the street food, the craft vendors and the villages and really connect with the true Caribbean.”
The “Made of Caribbean” campaign, developed with Chicago-based ad agency Leo Burnett, features television, digital, print, social and out-of-home advertising, including a high-profile placement that graced New York’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
Sandals’ brand repositioning coincides with significant expansion, with Beaches Exuma in the Bahamas and Beaches Runaway Bay in Jamaica currently under development. (No opening date has been announced for either resort.)
Stewart also said that over the next three years, Sandals will continue renovating resorts that are due for a refresh. Sandals currently has 17 resorts in Jamaica, St Lucia, Barbados, the Bahamas, Antigua, Grenada, Curacao and St Vincent, while Beaches has two in Jamaica and one in Turks and Caicos.
Sandals’ St Vincent resort is the brand’s latest, opened last March.
“For existing resorts, we’re going through them bit by bit, bringing them up to the level of the Sandals Saint Vincent,” said Stewart. “And for the next new resorts that we’re developing, of which there are several on the table, we’re taking what we did at Sandals Dunn’s River and Sandals Saint Vincent, and we’ll be levelling up again. We are doing anything but resting on our laurels.”
Source: Travel Weekly
