The Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart-owned Sandals Resorts International has drawn up elaborate plans to spend US$65 million to make the 99-room Dragon Bay Hotel in Portland the Caribbean’s most exquisite spa resort.

At the same time, Stewart yesterday lashed Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ) chairman Dennis Morrison over a newspaper report in which he (Morrison) sought to blame the Government’s failure to rehabilitate the Ken Jones aerodrome located in the eastern parish on the closure of the hotel.

Stewart, pointing to the robust economic activity generated by his Beaches Boscobel Hotel in St Mary, said that the fact that the Government had failed to put in the promised infrastructure at the Boscobel aerodrome was clear indication that the AAJ chairman “is merely seeking to excuse his abject failure to fulfil a promise”.

The hotel mogul told the Sunday Observer that the original owners of the Dragon Bay Hotel, despite being an international conglomerate, closed the hotel and sold it to him because they had been suffering massive losses as a result of decreasing business related to the neglect and the poor condition of Port Antonio and surrounding areas.

He said he had been waiting on the Government to carry out its plans to improve the infrastructure in the area to re-open Dragon Bay as the most exquisite spa resort in the Caribbean, comparable to the standard of the award-winning Royal Plantation in Ocho Rios. Its accommodation was planned to be “beyond anything existing” and taking full advantage of the neighbouring Blue Lagoon.

Stewart said the resort would treat with Port Antonio, the Portland capital, as all his other hotels had done in respect of other resort towns in Jamaica and the Caribbean, generating economic activity and jobs for Jamaicans. The Dragon Bay Hotel itself would employ 500 persons.

He described as “wildly exaggerated” the newspaper report’s claim that hundreds of workers were affected when the original owners closed the hotel, noting that the figure was 123 workers.

“Room occupancy had fallen drastically and the owners could not stomach further losses,” he added.

Stewart, whose Sandals Resorts is the largest private employer in Jamaica and which has opened the most hotels of any chain, purchased Dragon Bay and has hired over 20 employees to maintain the hotel, while waiting for the promised infrastructure.

But he said the planned expenditure of US$65 million on Dragon Bay could not be justified, given the poor state of the town and the dormant state of the airport without commercial flights.

“To operate a quality resort demands quality infrastructure. It’s a crying shame that we don’t have that in one of the most beautiful places in Jamaica,” Stewart lamented.

Commenting on Morrison’s speech made at the official opening of the new customs and arrival hall at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay last week, Stewart chastised the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) chairman for talking “nothing but drivel and propaganda and making empty promises”.

He described the Port Antonio Marina as a “white elephant” and noted that the Government had failed to keep its promise to upgrade the Boscobel aerodrome which in the 1960s had lights to facilitate night time traffic but was now a dilapidated terminal building; refurbish the Negril aerodrome and construct an airstrip at Font Hill to serve the southcoast.

He said Morrison’s latest promise that plans were advanced for the Vernamfield airstrip in Clarendon was “all idle talk and propaganda” designed to assuage the member of parliament, Mike Henry, who had been a stalwart in consistently advocating development of the area.