FALMOUTH, Trelawny — The Excellence Group has announced plans to spend US$25 million to expand its Excellence Oyster Bay property in Trelawny with the addition of five luxury villas, creating 50 new rooms by the end of this year.

The group has also indicated that it plans to introduce a new brand to the island by 2030.

The announcement was made by Antonio Montaner, CEO of the Excellence Group, who declared that the brand remains committed to Jamaica and is pressing ahead with major investments despite the recent challenges, including Hurricane Melissa last October.

“What we want to do is, at the end of the year, open 50 more rooms in a place where it’s exclusive, because what we want to do is villa,” said Montaner during a tour of the property with Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett on Sunday.

“We have already done five villas that are working really nice — really, really nice — and we’re going to copy something very similar, very exclusive, with private butler, with 24-hour service — but not only room service, any kind of service you need, we will give it. So it’s another step for us, and another step for Jamaica,” added Montaner.

He pointed out that the expansion is part of a wider, long-term, development strategy that will further deepen the group’s footprint in Jamaica.

“What we want to do is, [by] the end of 2028 [we mark the] beginning of coming here with a new brand, Finest, which is a family brand. We have Excellence, which it’s only adults, and we have Finest, which is a family brand. And this will be here, hopefully, [by the beginning] of 2030. That’s what we try to do here,” said Montaner.

He also disclosed that the Excellence Group is making significant investments in staff accommodation as part of its growth strategy as, “employees remain central to the success of the brand.

“We are going to open, for the workers, 60 rooms which will be done by the end of this year, which will be very easy for us to work together — and this is what we will have together. The Government has helped us.”

The group CEO added that further expansion of worker housing will follow as new properties come on stream.

“We will need more employees, so to have more employees we will have to make new rooms for the employees. What is very important for us is that the employees, they have to be comfortable, they have to be in a good place, they have to be well-trained, because it’s not only the hardware of the hotel [that matters]. If you do a beautiful hotel like the one we have over here and we don’t have good employees, the business doesn’t work,” Montaner reasoned as he said total investment in staff facilities and amenities is expected to reach US$8 million.

“It’s not only going to be rooms, rooms, we are going to do playgrounds, we’re going to do different things inside. So, more or less, we’re going to invest about US$8 million,” Montaner revealed.

He said the resort is already performing strongly, with encouraging occupancy levels and high repeat business.

“We’re so happy now [that] we have a good occupancy. The hotel is over 60 per cent of occupancy, which is very, very hard after the hurricane, but we’ve done it. We have 40 [to] 42 per cent of repeated people coming to the hotel, which we’re very happy,” added Montaner.

He told members of the media on the tour that the group also aims to develop more Jamaicans for transition into senior leadership roles for the brand.

“We need to make a general manager from Jamaica. This for us will be the most beautiful thing — a general manager from here. We need to train [staff] so the people who govern the hotels, they have to be from Jamaica,” he said.

Despite suffering significant damage during Hurricane Melissa, Montaner said the resort reopened within six weeks and retained its entire workforce.

“The damage was US$15 million. We reopened in month and a half. It was a very tough work but he [Bartlett] phoned me. He said, ‘You have to open before December,’ and we did it.

““We kept the staff; the staff was with us all the time. I told you before, without the staff, we are nothing. The staff is the most important thing for us,” added Montaner.

With more than 200 acres of beach front property in Trelawny, the Excellence Group’s latest investment underscores what its leadership says is its growing confidence in Jamaica’s tourism recovery and long-term growth prospects.

Last month Excellence Oyster Bay Resort handed over a US$21,000 cheque to Falmouth Public General Hospital to assist with restoration efforts, after Hurricane Melissa destroyed about 90 per cent of the facility’s roof.

In the meantime Bartlett welcomed the announcements by the Excellence Group, describing it as a powerful signal to global investors that Jamaica remains an attractive and resilient destination.

“Today we continue the programme of rolling out completed tourism assets that will secure the full recovery of Jamaica’s tourism post-Melissa. We are happy to be at one of our top-end luxury products, Excellence, and with the chairman himself, Tony Montaner, who has over the last 16 years been a steady partner with Jamaica and who has helped to grow the product to the point where today we are talking 4.3 million visitors and earning US4.5 billion,” Bartlett said.

He argued that the current expansion reflects a sector that is not merely recovering, but advancing.

“But it’s not over because today’s visit is about expansion, it’s about development, it’s about saying to the world its not that we are recovering we are recovering stronger, we are recovering better, and we are going to be providing new and more exciting experiences for the visitors who are coming to Jamaica,” added Bartlett.

(Photo: Horace Hines)

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett (centre) greets two Excellence Oyster Bay Resort workers, Marshalee (left) and Kimona, at their workplace on Sunday. (Photo: Horace Hines)