Canadian bounty

Sandals reports eye-popping 200% increase in business

Friday, March 19, 2010

SANDALS & Beaches Resorts is reporting a more than 200 per cent increase in business out of Canada last year, the result of heavy and continued marketing and promotions in that country, Canadian Travel Press (CTP) reported in its March 8 2010 edition.

"While that's an eye-popping gain, the reality is that Sandals & Beaches has been mining the potential of the Canadian market for the past 25 years, and in the last four or five years it has been 'escalating' its efforts even further," said CTP, regarded as Canada's most influential travel trade publication.

"We put a much bigger focus on Canada, starting with the travel agents and then with the consumer and, of course, with the tour operators, but apart from anything else, Canada was just strong and consistent -- everything was right," Sandals chairman Gordon 'Butch' Stewart told the publication in an interview during his visit in the final week of February.

Stewart, the publication said, also pointed to the fact that Sandals & Beaches had "a lot of presence" in Canada last year, making a major push into Western Canada, as well as stops in Montreal, Toronto and its other key markets; and embarking on a number of major marketing and promotional initiatives, including its first television advertising campaign.

Stewart also credited the increased airlift that's now available (particularly from Western Canada) to the Caribbean out of Canada as another significant factor in Sandals' success in 2009.

"I think Sandals has evolved as such a comprehensive group of resorts, every aspect, whether it's the fact that we have the largest scuba operation in the Caribbean, the quality [of our product], the family resorts, the levels of entertainment, the partnerships that we have with Xbox, Sesame Street, Martha Stewart, Greg Norman -- they go on and on. All in all as a product, we're innovative," CTP quoted Stewart.

He said that last year's gains are continuing, and business was up by 40 per cent in the first two months of 2010.

Canadian Travel Press also reported Sandals CEO Adam Stewart as saying that another factor that helped Sandals do well out of Canada was that "people love our product". He also pointed to the 40 per cent guest repeat rate Sandals posted last year.

"During their Toronto visit, the chairman and the CEO offered the trade details on a host of new developments, including Sandals' new all-Butler resort -- the 183-suite Sandals Emerald Bay property in Great Exuma," said the CTP report. "Acquired last fall, Sandals has invested US$15 million in the property, adding new restaurants, a signature swimming pool and, in the words of the chairman, 'Sandalising' the resort."

The father and son duo also talked about Sandals' new partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and the launch of Sandals Wedding by Martha Stewart, which offers six customisable Martha Stewart Wedding Experiences at the company's resorts throughout the Caribbean.

"Our product is beyond cutting edge. Everybody that goes into Caribbean tourism, every one them, uses us as the standard," CTP quoted the Sandals chairman. "These are things that our competition doesn't think about, and in a few years time their clients will have made them go that way, but by that time, we'll have gone on to other things."

Giving his outlook on 2010, Adam Stewart said, "I think people have to be very careful about talking about the recession being behind them because I don't really think it is. You may come out of negative growth, but the issue at hand is the unemployment that still exists between Canada, the United States and the UK, and those people who are unemployed are our customers, so the problem by no means is behind us".

"We have to keep providing tremendous value to the customer; and by the way, last year we saw the world's value perception amplified to a level we've never seen before. For a dollar spent, people want three or four dollars of value to be satisfied -- and everybody had to do it," CTP quoted the Sandals CEO.

His father agreed, pointing out that the change in attitude "hit us and we had to adjust because they [the guests] are always right".

The CTP story also examined the issue of pricing which, it said, has become a big topic this year. "It is almost as though there is an invisible structure of pricing and people who have a price in their heads, a price to do with an image or an image of price and it probably happens with motor cars, it probably happens with a lot of different things, but pricing is so sensitive right now," the publication quoted Butch Stewart.

He noted that customers will pay for a great brand, but they won't pay for it unless they get a deal.

However, he told CTP that Sandals Resorts are working really well, "the guests leave them with a velocity of excitement and when they get home, they want to share it with their friends, they want to tell them about it".

When that's happening, the Sandals chairman said, "You don't have to go and strip down the discount; yank up the discount; there's this power that goes through the system -- a lot of it word-of-mouth -- that says this is the place to go."

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