Sandals Resorts all over the Caribbean to provide care packages for its team members as the region works to fight the coronavirus epidemic. 

Like many hotels all over the world, Sandals Resorts International recently announced that it would be closing all its resorts between March 30 and May 15 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, despite the company’s original plan to stay open.

“If we could have we would have remained open to welcome guests and for the benefit of our team members but airline disruptions and airport closures coupled with recent global health warnings have forced us to temporarily close,” the company said in a statement.

In order to soften the economic fallout, Sandals will be paying team members a portion of their salaries during the closure, and will also ensure that all their benefits remain intact. 

The resort group has also created care packages which it is distributing to its team members throughout the Caribbean.

The care packages contain a number of essential food items including rice, sugar, flour, milk, juice, eggs, fruits and vegetables and other items. 

General Manager of Sandals Halcyon Beach Resort and Spa Christopher Elliott said making sure its team members were okay is a priority of the company at this time.

“Our team members are the heart of who we are, and we want to ensure that during this challenging period our resort team members do not go home empty handed. In addition to retaining benefits, fully- paid vacations and a portion of salaries, our resort members are also receiving these care packages,” said Elliott. “We are in this together, and in difficult times families stand together.”

— CJ

The post How Sandals Resorts Is Helping Its Team Members appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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We’ve made no secret of our love affair with pink sand beaches. But there’s one that’s particularly special, in the heart of The Bahamas, one that’s legendary. 

Our latest Caribbean Moment is an immersion into the legendary Pink Sand Beach on Harbour Island in The Bahamas, a more than three-mile-long stretch of sandy perfection. 

It’s splendidly wide (as much as 100 feet in some areas, dotted with luxury boutique hotels and tiny beach clubs for some of the properties in Dunmore Town. 

It’s as dreamy as it gets, the essence of the Caribbean beach fantasy, a getaway in a glance. 

So watch this beach and imagine yourself there, just you and the surf, fantasizing about the possibilities. 

See more in the latest Caribbean Moment video below: 

The post Caribbean Moment: A Classic Bahamas Beach appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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You can scour the Caribbean and still not find a more spectacularly beautiful collection of beaches than the ones on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. 

At every turn, there’s an exotic, brilliant coastline to choose: the windy wonders of Boca Grandi; the sheer vastness of Eagle Beach; the turquoise calm of Palm Beach. 

Of course, Aruba is more than just sandy beauty: there’s the thrilling art scene in San Nicolas; a quietly booming culinary movement at gourmet hotspots like Chef Erwin Husken’s Screaming Eagle; a marvelously transformed downtown in the now-bustling hub of Oranjestad. 

Aruba is dynamic, it’s fresh and it’s, plainly, it’s a rather wonderful Caribbean destination. 

No matter where you are right now, with everything that’s going on, everyone is dreaming about a Caribbean vacation, and the latest edition of Caribbean Moment does just that, bringing Aruba right to you. 

See the latest Caribbean Moment below:

Have you been to Aruba? How many times? What’s your favorite spot on the island? Let us know at news@caribjournal.com. 

— CJ

The post Caribbean Moment: A Digital Vacation to Aruba appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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It’s a time of great uncertainty for the global travel industry, but Jamaica Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said he has “every confidence that the tourism industry will get back to full strength at some point.”

Of course, it may look different — “devoid of some of its traditional norms and certainly not with a ‘business as usual approach.;”

“As we continue to fight this crisis together, we are reminded that we have been here before and like we overcame in the past, so shall we again,” Bartlett said this week. 

How quickly that happens, he said, depends on Jamaicans’ own ability to “act selflessly and obey precautionary measures on the one hand, while the state and private sector must work collaboratively to deploy resources and lead initiatives to encourage economic resilience as well as to help those who are suffering the greatest.”

Bartlett said he was of the view that the coronavirus pandemic is “easily the game-changer of this millennium.”

“We have to position ourselves to rebound from this global pandemic, which starts with the rebuilding of confidence,” he said. 

— CJ

The post Jamaica Confident Tourism Will Get Back to “Full Strength” appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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