This Jamaica Resort Group Kept 2,000 Employees on the Payroll While Its Doors Were Shut — Here's When Guests Return
Rather than lay off staff during a 10-month storm rebuild, one all-inclusive brand kept its Jamaican teams employed. The first of three resorts reopens November 18.
Sandals Resorts kept roughly 2,000 Jamaican team members on the payroll for the entire time its three storm-damaged Jamaica resorts were closed, rather than cutting jobs and rehiring at reopening, according to reporting in the Jamaica Observer. The disclosure reframes a rebuild that had mostly been discussed in terms of new restaurants and suite counts.
Executive chairman Adam Stewart described the effort as compressing "three years of work" into about nine and a half months, folding a long-planned renovation into repairs after Hurricane Melissa struck the island in October 2025. The Sandals Foundation also directed roughly US$6 million into community assistance in the storm's aftermath.
The reopening dates are now set. Sandals South Coast in Westmoreland, with 380 rooms, returns first on November 18, 2026. It is followed on December 18 by Sandals Montego Bay, the 255-room property that opened in 1981 as the company's very first resort, and by the 291-room property formerly known as Sandals Royal Caribbean, which will debut under a new identity.
The staffing decision matters for more than goodwill. When a resort closes for a year and lets its workforce go, its reopening effectively runs like a brand-new hotel, with service that can wobble for a season while staff learn the property. Keeping the team intact points to a smoother restart.
The timing also crowds Jamaica's winter calendar. Three of the largest room inventories on the island come back within a four-week window, adding hundreds of rooms in and around Montego Bay just as the high season begins. Openings almost always price softer than the same rooms will a year later, which gives early bookers leverage they rarely get at established resorts.
