MONTEGO BAY, St James — Two years ago, Jamark Luxury Transportation Limited was launched after vacationing family members of Executive Director Courtney Laing, who frequently rented luxury vehicles during their visits, recognised the need for a designated driver. Their idea allowed Laing to join them in relaxing and enjoying outings without the burden of driving.

“This actually happened because of my cousins who, whenever they come to Jamaica, rent luxury vehicles — or we hire luxury vehicles to take us around. So they’re like, ‘Courtney, I don’t want you to drive and tire yourself, and you can’t drink with us or stay out late.’ When we have a designated driver, we just go out and feel a little bit more secure and safe, knowing we can party without having to drive. And especially for long distances, whenever we have business travels to Kingston, instead of me having to wake up at five o’clock in the morning to pick them up at the airport and go to Kingston, spend eight hours in the day, and come back — that’s a lot on my body,” Laing explained.

“So the fact that we have a vehicle that we can have a driver take us, and we can sleep on the journey or have meetings in the vehicle while we travel — that was one of the main reasons why we undertook going into this business,” he added.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer at Jamark Luxury Transportation’s booth on the exhibition floor of Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) 2025 at Montego Bay Convention Centre on Tuesday, Laing revealed that the company currently boasts a fleet of seven vehicles.

“We have different types of vehicles in our fleet. We have GMC Suburbans, Mercedes Sprinter buses, we have Cadillac Escalade SUVs, including a 2024 Cadillac Escalade,” Laing disclosed.

He pointed out that the luxury transportation service, based in Montego Bay, provides more than VIP pickups. It offers airport and hotel transfers, excursions, weddings, as well as corporate and business travel.

While most clients come from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the service also caters to locals who typically use them for special occasions.

“I get locals that will rent my services to do birthdays or graduation or wedding anniversaries or just a special day — a gentleman would like to take his wife out on something special and he would rent my service and I would take them to the movies or to restaurants or dinner, something special. It’s not something you’re gonna do every day, but if you want it to be special, I will always be there to work out something with my local people,” he said.

Laing expressed his intent to expand branches of the business globally.

“My family also does similar business in New York. And the other one that lives in Florida does a similar business. So it’s New York, Florida, and Jamaica. So pretty soon it will be Jamark global, or Jamark worldwide,” he said, his voice brimming with optimism.

“This is a family business, so it was not like me alone getting all the resources by myself. We team together. We’re a family. So we put all our resources together for this to happen,” he added.

He acknowledged that marketing remains the company’s biggest challenge and noted that JAPEX offers an excellent opportunity to promote the business.

“When you have a small company like us, [you] have to market against the big boys who can afford to spend large, have resources to do an extensive marketing campaign, we can’t match that. We have to just work with whatever resources we have,” he said.

“We have to market ourselves. We have to use our social media, which is the way things are going right now. We are advertising on social media and our website. So that’s where we market from. We are here at JAPEX 2025 and we were here last year; and we go to trade shows. Next we are going to Jamaica Bridal Expo to market our brand and get it out there,” he added.

He was quick to note that JAPEX, which attracted 160 buyers from 25 different countries, provided a strong platform for advertising his luxury transportation service.

“We get clients, not a large, large list of clients, but we do get clients. It works. It works for me. It should be working for everybody… Most of my people that I met today [Tuesday] are from Dubai and India and Poland. I can’t go to Poland to market my business, so the fact that they are here in Jamaica and I can talk to them one-on-one and have that interaction makes my business better,” he said.

“You have to invest in yourself and invest in business, and this is it. You can’t just buy a car and expect you’re gonna get people to just come in your car. You have to market your car. There are a lot of cars out there. JAPEX is just a good platform where buyers and sellers meet, and you can meet personally because, even today, I met someone from the United States that I’ve been speaking to since three months ago. They came to JAPEX, and it was good to put a face to the voice that I’ve been speaking to for the last three months. And within the last three months I’ve gotten six business from them,” he added.