BLUEFIELDS, Westmoreland — Bluefields Bay Villas has raised the bar in luxury accommodations, adding four new suites to the property, a move the tourism minister says will take marketing to another dimension.

The all-inclusive collection of six villas nestled on Jamaica’s south coast has now grown to 27 suites. The new one-bedroom suites each have a private veranda and access to a shared infinity edge pool that overlooks the ocean.

The target is the higher end of the market.

“We have been pushing an up-market, high-dollar tourism in Jamaica and we’re continuing to do so. We are hoping that this first expansion is just one of the many phases in what we are hoping to do here in Bluefields,” said Managing Director Houston Moncure.

He was speaking with the Jamaica Observer at the official opening of the suites on Sunday. Guests included minister of finance, Dr Nigel Clarke; Minster of tourism, Edmund Bartlett; US ambassador to Jamaica, Nick Perry; Jamaica’s ambassador to the United States, Audrey Marks; and senior strategist in the Ministry of Tourism, Delano Seiveright.

Bluefields Bay Villas CEO Debbie Moncure and her husband Braxton said their son Houston was the conceptualiser of the suites.

“Houston came up with [the] concept and so he went to the architect — otherwise known as me — and we developed the suites,” she said with a chuckle.

Debbie, who was born in New York and holds a BA in Art History from Tufts University and a Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, moved to Washington, DC, immediately upon finishing her graduate studies. She met her husband Braxton in DC and they began coming to Jamaica together in the late 1970s. They were married in Bluefields in 1983. The couple celebrated their 40-year anniversary during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new suites.

Speaking at the ceremony, the tourism minister lauded the Moncures for their contribution to the industry.

“Tourists have come and they have really become a part of Bluefields. When you come to this area people talk about it and I get messages, I get calls — some are wonderful calls Houston, and some are about the development and the joy it brings,” Bartlett said.

“The addition of this innovation is going to mean a lot more to us than you. No other country has the hosting capacity that we have. For all the pain and suffering that tourism offers to this country, we are the only industry that has grown every quarter for the last 35 years,” he boasted.

Bartlett added that growth has spiralled over the years.

“In the last nine quarters the growth has been spectacular, absolutely phenomenal but that growth has happened now because of people like Houston who have come up with ideas and have brought innovations and have enabled more people to come to us. What you are doing is going to enable me to take marketing to another dimension,” the minister said.

Houston stressed that the Villa supports the local community.

“We believe our model of tourism is really good for Jamaica,” he said.