Gordon 'Butch' Stewart recently appointed his 25-year-old son, Adam, CEO of Sandals and Beaches Resorts, effective immediately. Twenty-five years old. Makes me feel positively "pensionable" as someone so kindly put it to me.

Tamara Scott-Williams

About a year ago I sat across from Adam Stewart at a columnist's luncheon at the Jamaica Observer. No doubt, he is young, looks younger than his years even, and while it is fair to assume that he would go into the 'family business', one could hardly suspect, a year ago, that he was an MIT - a mogul in training - and would so soon take over the business.

But much can be assumed about Adam's abilities, for 'my boss' Butch Stewart is no fool, and even though he claims that he had to be 'pushed into' the nepotism that propelled him to make his son head honcho - it is clearly not a move that comes out of the blue.

Yes, Adam will report to his father, who remains the chairman, and yes he will have the benefit of a board of directors and management team to ensure that the under 35 group of young men and women that he leads will make sound and profitable decisions from here on in. God knows Butch doesn't pay me much for these columns, so at the very least, I hope Adam will run things in a way that makes the group so profitable that we all could share in Butch's great idea and Adam's business talent.

And 'talent' is the operative word here, for Adam isn't just back from school with a shiny, new master's degree from a fancy Ivy League institution. He's a Campion old boy, who interned at the Sandals group over the summers while he pursued a Bachelor's degree in hospitality management from FIU (Florida International University). A Bachelors degree from FIU - only. That and some hard work, we are sure, over the past three years.

Adam is the former director of resort product and responsible for all on-property operations and revenues, he is the current chairman of the company's youth committee and is a member of the Sandals Resorts International executive committee.
He also had a little practice playing 'Butch' having spent millions of daddy's money on the Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort and Spa in Providenciales. According to a recent interview in this paper, the Italian Village, for which construction starts this month and is expected to be completed by December 2007, will take luxury to the next level. "We have done well so far.

ADAM STEWART. We have done well so far. But now we are letting the first-world geniuses help us to create these facilities

But now we are letting the first-world geniuses help us to create these facilities," Adam says. The first world geniuses are helping Adam to think BIG with this new luxury project: with standard amenities such as butler service; plasma TVs, X-Box 360 from Microsoft; marble showers, and Jacuzzis, and the largest water playground seen in the Caribbean to date, the finest wines, top of the line sporting equipment and activities, and a sophistication the level of which has never before offered in a Caribbean vacation: the Turks and Caicos Resort vision will set a new standard for the Sandals and Beaches products.

And so the pressure is on for young Adam Stewart, the last thing he needs now is a break in the winning streak: Sandals has been voted World's Best All-inclusive Resorts 13 years in a row.
But Adam is 'definitely not' intimidated by the enormity of the job, despite his youth he says because he has been learning from the likes of hospitality and business heavy weights: Merrick Fray, Brian Roper, Chris Zacca and has support at all levels of the business. Young Adam Stewart and the Sandals group appears to be in very good hands.

Which brings me to the point of all of this very good PR for Butch and Adam in my column: What to do now with the chairman? Certainly, Butch is too high-energy, too vision-filled, and too recently departed from daily grind and the cut and thrust of big business. I certainly don't see Butch filling his long days with rounds of golf, or spending long nights on the international cocktail circuit when not playing dominoes. Nah, he's got too much left in him to take it so easy.

What if we made Butch Jamaica's tourism tsar? We could use Butch to coordinate policy with the tourism industry. What he does on a regional empire scale - the Sandals and Beaches hotel empire stretches from Jamaica to Cuba, Antigua-Barbuda, St Lucia, The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands and is the largest operator of luxury ultra resorts in the Caribbean - he could think of doing on a grand scale in Jamaica.

Let's face it while they may not be getting along at the moment, Butch could better handle tourism for the government of Jamaica, than they can do for themselves. He could do a better job of selling Jamaica as a whole, rather than selling little plots of all-inclusive properties. Butch could change the perception of Jamaica and improve what it has to offer to the world's tourists. Look, if Butch can manage to convince many people that Sandals is a country in itself, imagine what he could do for Jamaica.

And who better to do it than Butch. Let's face it, he's gone through the learning curve, and grown his tourism product from the all-beer all the time Sandals type crew to include the more elegant Royal Plantation crowd: Butch knows how to entertain on any scale. And with more and more Chinese and Indian travellers coming on stream, who better to capture their imagination and vacation dollars but Butch?

We all have concerns about the development of Harmony Cove as the ultimate luxury residential and hotel property in Jamaica. Who knows this business well enough to pull it off? Certainly, no one in the present government has pushed their head out far enough to claim authority over the domain of luxury and hospitality and entertainment. The 2004 unveiling of the planned $72 billion tourism development for Trelawny, prime minister Patterson said at the time, would put Jamaica ahead of the competition in luxury vacations and offer an "experience unparalleled in the Caribbean".

News of the development of Harmony Hall has been slow to come since 2004. Makes you wonder if it will happen at all, and now that young Adam Stewart is spear heading the 'ultimate luxury vacation' in another country not Jamaica, we're already far behind.
This column wishes you much success, Adam Stewart. When next you see your dad, tell him there could be an even bigger job for him if he wants.

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