Sandals Resorts, the pre-eminent Caribbean all-inclusive chain of resorts, will host local, regional and international media, along with government and industry officials, attending the ninth meeting of Counterpart International’s Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism, whose one one-day CMExPress version touches down in St. John’s on Tuesday, June 14, 2005.
Dr. Gordon “Butch” Stewart, chairman of the Sandals and Beaches chain of resorts, made the announcement in Barbados yesterday after being honoured by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference and Profit Partnership meeting. Dr. Stewart received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Caribbean Hotel Association President Berthia Parle for personal and professional achievement.

“We are happy to host CMExPress ? a very important meeting of media and industry officials,” said Dr. Stewart, whose company hosted the first CMEx meeting in October 2001. “Sandals takes the business of sustainable tourism very seriously and we trust this meeting will contribute to the region’s successful hosting of Cricket World Cup in 2007 and advance the dialogue on disaster mitigation in the Caribbean,” said Stewart of the topics under scrutiny in Antigua.

Stewart noted that the meeting comes at a time when Sandals is expanding its own accommodation facilities in Antigua, “which demonstrates our commitment to an improved product and increased accommodation for a historic sporting spectacle in the region in 2007”.

Dr. Basil Springer, chairman of Counterpart Caribbean, described Dr. Stewart as a Caribbean visionary. “Dr. Stewart is a proponent of the smart partnership philosophy which recognises the respective inputs from the public and private sectors necessary to provide the balance for sustainable economic growth.” His entrepreneurial drive throughout the years has been coupled with the optimal mix of money and management, said Dr. Springer, “without which the rate of growth and employment generation in the Caribbean would be stymied”.
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