Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has alluded to Tobago’s potential for a second opportunity to build a Sandals hotel.
When he spoke during the celebration of the actual completion of the new terminal at ANR Robinson International Airport in Tobago on March 15, 2025, he brought up this point as part of a larger plan for the country’s economic growth.
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March 16, 2025, marked the last day that Dr. Rowley will serve as prime minister. On March 17, Energy Minister Stuart Young will take the oath of office as prime minister.
Rowley noted in his address, “Tobago’s potential is far from being realized. Tobago’s economy is still fledgling and there is so much more we can do if we have the right infrastructure and the right attitude is associated with the right infrastructure.”
Rowley claimed that not allowing Sandals to construct a hotel in Tobago while he was prime minister was one of his regrets.
He had no idea that there were any significant hotel room development projects underway in Tobago.
In the past, the Sandals organization had considered building a hotel in Tobago, and Rowley recalled that they “agreed that Tobago was a place they could invest.”
However, he remarked, “We chased them away. Accused them of all manner of evil.”
Sandals CEO Gebhard Rainer stated during a press conference on January 15, 2019, that the company’s decision to get out of the project at that time was mostly due to bad press.
Some people at the time expressed worries about environmental harm and whether the hotel’s construction had received the necessary approval.
Sandals may eventually return to the notion of a hotel in Tobago, as Rainer mentioned in 2019.
Rowley revealed that the prospect of a Sandals hotel in Tobago remained a possibility.
“Recently, I spoke to the leadership of Sandals and I asked them to come look at us again.”
Rowley said, “If I was the problem, I will not be there tomorrow.”
He said that Adam Stewart, the chairman of Sandals Group, will be visiting Tobago in April.
He stated, “When he comes he will meet Prime Minister Stuart Young and you Tobagonians…especially you (Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary) Farley (Augustine)…and you (PDP leader) Watson (Duke). I am inviting both of you from this platform…whenever Adam Stewart comes to Trinidad and Tobago…sit down with him…and all of you become salesmen and saleswomen….for the potential of Tobago…and success will be that you all manage to convince them to look at Tobago again and give Tobago, one or more of those Sandals’ projects that the Caribbean has been benefiting from.”
The audience included Duke and Augustine. Another significant economic gain for Tobago, according to Rowley, is a marina next to the Magdalena Hotel.
He said that customers pay for those services in foreign currencies and that this opens job opportunities in vessel repair.
