Princess Hotel to provide 600 free homes for staff
Published:Thursday | September 14, 2023 | 12:10 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
JAMAICA’S NEWEST resort developer, Princess Hotels and Resorts, will provide 600 homes for its employees, free of cost, as it secures human capital for its 2,000 room Green Island, Hanover property.
“This is the first foreign hotel company to invest so much money in staff housing,” the group’s regional director, sales and marketing, Jamaica, Marc Pelfort, said, adding that they will go even further.
“As of now, staff being employed to work at our first of two resorts in Green Island, Hanover, ‘Princess Senses The Mangrove’, an adults-only property, will start earning full salary during training,” Pelfort said.
The first 1,000 rooms are slated to open between February 2024 and April 2024 and will be located on an adult-only resort and the ‘Princess Grand Jamaica’, a family resort.
Overall, Princess will build four hotels on lands in Green Island.
The hotel, which is being marketed as part of the Negril resort area, has been causing some confusion among Jamaicans. However, it is not unusual for hotels to be located in Hanover, for example, and be marketed as being located in Montego Bay.
The same is true for Ocho Rios. Some St Mary hotels are sold as Ocho Rios properties.
“Princess has invested over US$400 million (J$63.2 billion) into the development,” Pelfort told The Gleaner during JAPEX 2023 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.
Pelfort revealed this was the single largest investment their group, which was born in Spain but now operates in places such as Mexico and the Dominican Republic, has made in any country.
He is particularly pleased with the social responsibility aspect of their business.
“Offering housing will attract skilled workers who are not residents of Hanover and its bordering parish, Westmoreland, to relocate for work with Princess,” he related.
In the meantime, Pelfort says they have redefined luxury at the Industry Cove resort, which is nestled in Green Island and will boast 415 ocean view rooms, including what the group has tagged “opulent over-water villas and swim-out suites”, as well as the immersive O’Club experience.
Guests on the O’Club will experience exclusive benefits including theme parties, dance classes, themed dinners, mixology classes, private pool with daily activities and entertainment, and hookah sensation.
The hotel will be home to 11 restaurants, plus access to a-la-carte dining at the Princess Grand Jamaica; eight bars, and five swimming pools.
BIG PART OF TOURISM
According to Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett, Princess is part of the biggest wave of tourism development in Jamaica.
In fact, new inventory on the 10-year 15,000 room trajectory announced by the Ministry of Tourism over the last year will also see the opening of 450-room RIU Aquarelle Trelawny by May 2024, and the reopening of Blue Diamond’s Hideaway Resort (formerly Royalton White Sands), as an adults-only hotel.
“We’re beginning to see the fruits of our work and it’s not because we’re lucky. It’s because of hard work and commitment, ensuring that we engage in the right places, but, more importantly, that we do what we say we’re going to do,” Donovan White, director of tourism, told delegates on Monday at JAPEX.
He added that, over the next two to five years, some 8,000 rooms are slated for opening, representing a whopping investment target of just over US$4 billion.
White’s comments come as local hotel chain Sandals Resorts International gets ready to redevelop Jewel Runaway Bay and Beaches Negril, and while fencing goes up and ground is dug for the newest brand to Jamaica, Unico in Rose Hall, St James.