GORDON ‘Butch’ Stewart pulled out all the stops to reopen the Sandals Whitehouse Hotel in Westmoreland before Christmas, saying Jamaica and the staff were precious to his hotel group.

The hotel will open its doors on December 18, despite an announcement earlier that it might not have made that date, because of the extensive repair work that was needed to correct earlier shoddy work.

Touched by Stewart’s largesse, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett hailed the hotel mogul and his Sandals Group for their commitment to Jamaica and its people in deciding to speedily reopen the 360-room Sandals Whitehouse resort at optimum employment during a time of deep recession.

“I want to make a statement in relation to the position of the Government of Jamaica that we are grateful that jobs are able to be kept at a time like this,” Bartlett told a cheering audience of more than 400 Sandals staff members during a luncheon at the south coast hotel on Saturday afternoon.

The four-year-old hotel was closed in August leaving more than 300 workers laid-off at half-pay to allow for extensive repair, especially of faulty electrical works pre-dating its original opening. Stewart has taken the project managers, the state-run Urban Development Corporation (UDC), to court for the problems.

He noted that the repair work included the relaying of more than two miles of cable, adding that much work still remained, such as “windows that flood sometimes in the rain … But we will find the time to do it, because our job is to see to it that this hotel is the shining light in Jamaica”.

Bartlett, in his upbeat address, commended Stewart’s decision to pay half the salaries of the laid-off workers when he could easily have used the fact of the global economic recession to avoid doing so.

He suggested that “a deep and abiding passion for people, a love for the people of the country and an undying desire to see them develop, grow, and become enriched” and not just a desire for a “return on investment” had driven Stewart’s work in building “the best of the brands that Jamaica has to offer…”

Responding, Stewart said the decision to pay half-salaries during the hotel’s closure arose from the recognition “that you may be out of work but the expenses don’t stop”; and Sandals was aware that “the people that make us up, we have to stay with them…”

In a 50-minute presentation, Stewart retraced the birth and development of Sandals since 1981, suggesting it had now become the benchmark for service in the global tourist industry as exemplified by its success at the World Tourism Awards in London three weeks ago.

“The most awards any other hotel got was one; we got 12,” he said to lusty applause.

He reminded the audience that the Sandals Group was a main “driver” of the Jamaican economy, since apart from direct employment, it was a major purchaser of locally produced goods, including $3 billion paid annually to Jamaican farmers.

The Sandals marketing programme more than matched that of the Jamaica Tourist Board in bringing visitors to local shores, he said.

Stewart likened experiences at Sandals Whitehouse to that of the Observer newspaper, which he also owns, and which he insisted was now the best in the country.

“When we started with the Jamaica Observer in 1993, people laughed at us… because Jamaica has had a history of newspapers starting and going out of business (while) The Gleaner has been around for 175 years or so… I said to them the Jamaica Observer is here to stay, the Jamaica Observer will be in business one and two centuries from now. It is an institution that we going to continue to build on behalf of Jamaicans for Jamaicans…” said Stewart.

There was an air of celebration in the hotel’s ballroom as several workers and wellwishers rose to pay tribute to Sandals and its contribution to their lives and community. Venisha Summerville (housekeeping), Ronald Spence (engineering) and Orrin Campbell (dining room) spoke of transformation in their lives as a result of employment at Sandals.

Melodie Inwright and Bernice Sinclair of the local craft producers and traders associations, Astil Gage of the Beeston Spring Community Development Committee and Sherwin Daley of JUTA (Negril) praised the hotel for its contribution to the economic well-being of the community and the wider south coast.

Tourism Director John Lynch, head of the Jamaica Hotels and Tourist Association and Sandals executive Wayne Cummings, and several members of the Sandals hierarchy were on hand.