Aswad Morgan, group marketing manager for Therapedic Caribbean (left) and Kenneth Morgan (second left) managing director of Therapedic Caribbean, showcase the bedding company's hotel line to Jose Maria Sanchis (second right), Riu Group director, while Barbera Tapper (right) JAMPRO executive, looks on. Occasion was the suppliers exhibition for Riu at the Hilton Kingston hotel last year May.

When guests at the 396-room Riu Tropical Bay hotel in Negril go to sleep at night they do so on beds that are made in Jamaica -- 850 of them.

Riu is a Spanish group with hotels in its home country, Caribbean, North Africa, Cyprus, Portugal and Mexico and Tropical Bay, which began operating in March, although it is yet to have a formal opening.

Riu, given its international connections, might have sourced its beds abroad, but the $10 million contract to supply them was won by Therapedic Caribbean, a member of the Morgans Group of Companies.

Therapedic Caribbean was awarded the contract last June after it participated in an earlier suppliers exhibition for Riu at the Hilton Kingston hotel, arranged by the government's investment promotion arm, JAMPRO.

"We were invited to come to Negril and have further talks, after that we were awarded the contract in June and finished delivery in March," marketing manager of the Morgans Group, Aswad Morgan, told the Observer.

"JAMPRO must be commended for attracting this sizable investment to Jamaica and more importantly encouraging them to buy locally," added Morgan, as he called on other local hotels to support the manufacturing industry.

The Riu hotel in Negril is the latest in major tourism investments that have come on stream in the past two years, following the opening of the Ritz Carlton in Montego Bay late last year and the Hedonism III in Runaway Bay in 1999.

Those two hotels were supplied beds by the McIntosh Group, but the Riu contract to Therapedic Caribbean represents the largest single bedding contract in recent years.

With almost 400 rooms Riu is among the largest hotels in the island, behind others like Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios, Holiday Inn, Wyndham Rose Hall and Ritz Carlton in Montego Bay. However Ritz, with 427 rooms, had sourced only 285 beds in the McIntosh contract.

The 17 year-old Therapedic Caribbean, with head office in New Kingston, manufactures the beds under franchise for International bedding brand, Therapedic, at its factory in Naggo's Head in Portmore.

Morgan says the factory, which employs approximately 30 persons, manufactures the beds to Therapedic's international standards. Therapedic, he pointed out, is regarded as one of the largest sleep associations in the world, with factories in over 60 countries.

For Riu, Therapedic had supplied its triple edge spring system from its hotel line, which Morgan said, is among the best the company makes.

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