Sandals Resorts International has officially broken ground on a multi-million dollar expansion of its Dover Beach property in Barbados, marking the commencement of the construction of an additional 222 rooms and suites. This expansion, when complete in November 2017, will add to the existing 280-room count and place the property as the largest Sandals resort in the Eastern Caribbean.

The official groundbreaking ceremony took place last week on Wednesday and was led by SRI’s Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart and Chief Executive Officer Adam Stewart, along with Barbados Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy, Minister of Health and Parliamentary Representative John Boyce and several tourism and business officials associated with the massive undertaking.With this expansion, Sandals is set to create an additional 520 new jobs bringing the total direct employment to over 1,100. According to Butch Stewart, Sandals Resorts is exceedingly grateful for the “Bajan support and hospitality” extended to the Sandals brand.
On completion, the resort will offer five additional restaurants, a new spa and wellness sanctuary, three new swimming pools and an entertainment pavilion complete with a bowling alley, the first for a Sandals resort. Recognizing the growing demand for meetings and convention facilities in Barbados, the Sandals expansion will also feature a state of the art 10,500 square feet conference facility capable of seating 550 people.Adam Stewart took the opportunity to reassure the Barbados community that Sandals is indeed here to stay and that the resort chain’s commitment and success at any project rest on three key pillars. “Our organization is really three things,” said Stewart. “We have the ability to take a tourism product and market it globally across the world and make it a household name.
“Secondly, we have a projects and development team that thinks bigger and better with every new project. So for us, our biggest competition is always our last project.
“Our third pillar is the people – the people of Barbados. When you talk you sing, when you smile you light up. And what our organization is able to do, perhaps better than most, is allow the individual team members who are already great to become even better with initiatives such as our Sandals Corporate University.” Tourism Minister Sealy pledged support to the project and lauded Sandals for its invaluable investment in the Barbados tourism product.
“In 2015, we welcomed 591,000 visitors to Barbados which was a new record and at least 20,000 of those were Sandals guests, so indeed we have seen the positive impact of Sandals,” he said.