Ocean by 10 Hotels looking to invest more in JA

WESTERN BUREAU:

ENCOURAGED BY the early signs, a key player in one of the world’s biggest hotel brands has expressed interest in broadening their investment in Jamaica.

Juan Carlos Fernandez-Friera, vice-president, marketing, Ocean by H10 Hotels, said his Spain-based group, which includes 65 hotels globally, is “very happy to be here in Jamaica” and would be setting up additional hotels, if the business takes off.

Already, Ocean by H10 Hotels have two resorts operating side by side and connected on the same property in Coral Spring Gardens in Trelawny – Ocean Coral Spring and Ocean Eden Bay.

“We are fairly new in the country. The Spanish hotel chain is very important, with 65 hotels worldwide, but it’s our first experience in Jamaica, our most important investment so far, and if things go well we will keep investing in the country,” Fernandez-Friera said in a Gleaner interview.

Ocean Coral Springs, a family resort, opened in December 2019 and Ocean Eden Bay opened barely three months ago, in November 2021. The properties combined have 957 rooms and were badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic at start up, forcing Ocean Coral Springs to close its doors.

Despite that, Fernandez-Friera, a Spain native, said they were not discouraged.

A QUITE DISTINCTIVE PRODUCT

“When we first opened Ocean Coral Springs the first three months before the pandemic, we saw how good we could sell our product. As you see, we’ve a quite distinctive product, differentiated to others, and it’s having success,” he remarked.

Then they were faced with a similarly frustrating situation when the other half of the business, the adult-only Ocean Eden Bay, opened its door.

“We had a very difficult month of January. The Omicron variant stopped the business completely, making all markets cancel reservations and it was difficult until last week,” Fernandez-Friera shared. “Now, from February onwards, Canada is recovering the confidence, the US market is also coming back and the Europeans ... the greatest market.

“In general worldwide, people are tired of the pandemic. They have less restrictions in the countries and our most important markets and we can feel an improvement and a better pick-up,” he continued, predicting that “we’re also going to have a very nice summer business”.

This, he reasoned, is based on increased occupancy, which is now at 60 per cent, and a change in trends.

“We feel like we’ve made the right decision to come to Jamaica. Despite the pandemic, we see the potential. People see that we have a unique product and the potential is there so we can expect business and we’re really, really satisfied with being in Jamaica ... the culture, the music, people,” Fernandez-Friera said. “Coming from a Spanish-speaking company, sometimes it’s a challenge to communicate in another language, but we’ve been able to manage a good communication locally. It’s the perfect fit, we feel at home and we’ve integrated very fast.”

Much of that integration has been facilitated with the support of locals, who kept the business going by vacationing at the hotels during the pandemic, when travelling restrictions impacted foreign support.

That gave Fernandez-Friera a real Jamaican first-hand experience.

NO REGRETS

“The Jamaican culture, the brand, even your flag, has nice colours, it’s a great selling point for our company,” he said. “It brings us value, differentiation from the other destinations where we are, it’s like the new thing and it’s got a lot of potential. In the European market, we can bring more Europeans to the island because we promote it there ... in Spain and the UK.”

The hotelier stressed further Ocean by H10 Hotels’ satisfaction, saying, “we don’t regret it (Jamaican investment) and probably we’ll be growing in the island in the future”.

“We still have to polish and fine tune details. It’s not easy being new in the island to open up an almost 1,000-room hotel in a natural area, creating new jobs. We’ve people who have never worked in the hospitality (sector); we’re teaching these people how to work,” he informed. “That’s a big challenge but it also makes us proud, proud because the tourist industry is an industry that brings value to communities, not only to the people who work here, but to the suppliers and the families of the workers.

“It’s really, really a nice industry. Everybody likes tourism, everybody likes hotels, it’s nice to grow that way. And we’re proud to contribute to that development,” Fernandez-Friera said.