Exclusive: Sandals Eyes Barbados and Grenada, Rules Out Mexico

Travel Agent chatted on Tuesday, June 28, with Sandals Resorts International CEO Adam Stewart and learned that the all-inclusive company is brainstorming two possible expansions in the Caribbean.

Stewart told us that Sandals, which currently has properties in Jamaica, St. Lucia, Antigua, The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, is considering expansions to both Barbados and Grenada.

“Whether this is two years from now or five years from now, these are two destinations we can definitely see ourselves in,” Stewart says. “When we looked at them, we looked at the usual things we look for in finding a great location for a resort, mainly a great beach. "

Stewart says the plan would call for a Beaches Resort in the Barbados, which is heavy in family travel, and a Sandals Resort in Grenada, which would be small and romantic.

“Barbados is an island we always thought we should be in,” Stewart told us, noting that Sandals once owned, but then later sold, a piece of land in Barbados. “And Grenada is just a beautiful, smaller island.”

The one destination it looks like Sandals will not expand to, however, is Mexico. Just a month after his father, Chairman Gordon “Butch” Stewart told us Sandals was “hunting” for possibilities in Mexico, Adam Stewart says a Sandals expansion to Mexico is not in the company’s foreseeable future.

“We always look,” says Adam Stewart, “but I don’t think an expansion to Mexico would be the best fit for us. We really feel comfortable in the English-speaking Caribbean islands. That's where we are our most successful.”

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