Executive Chairman of Sandals Resorts International (SRI), Adam Stewart, has expressed optimism about the state of recovery of the regional tourism industry and the prospects for the future.

Stewart’s optimism is underscored by the fact that the hotel chain recently opened its 16th resort in the region – Sandals Royal Curacao.

Stewart, who sat down with Yahoo Finance’s Andy Serwer for a wide-ranging interview on the popular programme ‘Influencers’, said despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, things are getting better.

“I think they are and I certainly think they were prior to the pandemic,” he said.

When asked “How is business now?” Stewart said Sandals has already exceeded 2019 occupancy levels and rates. He said September and October numbers are unlike any the resort has seen before.

“It’s booming particularly with social groups, it’s booming with weddings, it’s booming with incentive travel,” he revealed.

According to Stewart, this shows that people have a greater sense of appreciation for what travel meant in our day-to-day lives post-COVID.

“Some people call it the revenge traveller but it’s not been a blip. Looking forward to 2023 we are far ahead of where we were same time in 2019,” he told Serwer.

The Sandals boss acknowledged that rising inflation and supply chain issues as well as the Russia-Ukraine war present challenges which he said are affecting a range of businesses including cruise and the motor vehicle industries.

“What it’s forcing you to do is to work your relationships more …and it’s requiring a different level of infrastructure. We’re running a team that is about 25 per cent larger today than we were in 2019 like-for-like just to get all the circulating inventories … to get all the elements that we can’t procure locally,” said Stewart.

He noted that even locally, there are challenges in securing certain items, including a shortage of glass bottles.

Meanwhile, Stewart acknowledged that: “The pandemic shattered these tourism-based economies. The airline industry (was devastated). It was inconceivable coming out of 2019 which was the best year on record for tourism”.

To underscore the extent of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Stewart pointed out that, for some countries in the region, their gross domestic product is up to 90 per cent tourism-based.

In the case of Jamaica, the Sandals CEO noted that 50 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings come from tourism.

“When we got the phone call to say that the airports were closing, and international flights and connectivity (were being suspended) that was an inconceivable conversation that we had to just sit down and digest for a moment and sadly we had to close our hotels,” he said.

Stewart highlighted that despite the tourist traffic having dried up, Sandals kept its employees in their jobs.

“We knew that this would not last forever. We did not have a crystal ball but we knew that when it did (end) the infrastructure, the magic of what got us here had to be intact so we kept our entire team together”.

Stewart said regional tourism has bounced back with Sandals leading the way.

“Other industries have lagged and I think some of the government infrastructure is probably still lagging a bit in just getting it all back together and marching forward,” he stated.

He told Serwer that it was challenging to keep everyone on the payroll when the hotel was not earning.

“Yes it was. My father was still with us. We lost my father on January 4th, 2021. My father was dealing with his sickness at the time but he was relentless in his love for the Caribbean and its people. He felt it was his duty as sort of the father not just of my family but the organisation and he was relentless in wanting to find a way (to keep the workers in their jobs)”.

Stewart explained that it was possible to do so because Sandals is a low leveraged business. He said his father provided the liquidity to make it happen.

“Not only did we do that (keep workers employed), we donated to the Government of Jamaica an entire resort for over a year free of charge as a COVID centre for COVID positive cases which then morphed into a vaccination centre”.

Additionally, Sandals bought 40 ventilators and donated over 300 trips to frontline workers and, when needed, provided transportation in various islands to hotel workers and hotel rooms to many of the doctors and nurses that were in the midst of the COVID battle.

“Our participation was intense. It was on the frontline in every country,” said Stewart.