Bartlett announces new St Regis hotel for Bull Bay
Published:Friday | December 18, 2020 | 12:25 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett says the planned construction of a new St Regis Hotel in Bull Bay in St Andrew is among the more than US$1 billion in potential tourism investments that have withstood the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Bartlett made the disclosure following a tour of the Chukka Ocean Outpost facility at Sandy Bay, Hanover, yesterday. “It is a Jamaican investor from Wall Street who is coming to see us, and he has bought the property already. It is 250 acres overall, and it is going to border St Thomas and St Andrew, and it will become the first of the developments in the new destination of St Thomas that we have just created,” added Bartlett, who did not give an estimated date for the start of construction.
The St Regis luxury hotel chain is one of several franchises under the Marriot Bonvoy Loyalty Rewards Programme used by the Marriot International hospitality brand. The programme was formed in the 2019 merger of its three former rewards programmes, Marriot Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest.
Bartlett boasted that a number of other tourism projects were still on track, despite the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on the sector.
“The Princess Hotel development for Green Island, Hanover, to include 2,000 rooms, is still intact; the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel in St James, with 1,700 rooms, is still on track; as are the 500-room facility for Richmond and the Sandals development for Dunn’s River, both in St Ann,” said Bartlett.
“This is a signal that destination Jamaica is still seen as a place for positive investment, and that there is confidence in us and in the way in which we have managed this pandemic. It speaks to our own future in the industry and otherwise, because, if we are doing it right, the world will see and the world will come to Jamaica,” added Bartlett.
With 130,000 tourism sector jobs having been lost locally in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Tourism is projecting that 40 per cent of tourism workers will be back on the job by April 2021, when the winter tourist season ends.
Roughly 30 per cent of tourism workers are said to have already resumed duties.