You are now at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the Grenadines. Or Amanyara in the Turks and Caicos Islands. You're enjoying an elegant dinner while pausing to think about the chair you're sitting on and the table you're eating at.
How did all this stuff get here? What about the furniture in your room or the tiles under your feet? Or the grill that just grilled the snapper?
This is one of the most important components of building a Caribbean hotel: logistics—navigating the complex world of cross-border shipping and importing. Most people are not fully aware of the challenges and effort required to do so, especially when it comes to hotels in the Caribbean.
“With the exception of basic building materials like cement and blocks, most everything else for Caribbean hotels has to be imported,” Steve Keats, vice president and partner Kestrel Global LogisticsAccording to Caribbean Daily, the company is the logistics leader for many of the Caribbean’s top hotels, including the aforementioned Mandarin and Amanyara.
For lumber and plywood, Keats said, you may have to source it from the United States, Southeast Asia or Brazil.
Rebar and steel? From the Dominican Republic, China, India, the United States or Türkiye.
What about the furniture and flooring? You will source from China, Italy or Malaysia.
Then there are linens from the United States, China, Turkey or Egypt, or kitchen and restaurant equipment from the United States, China or Europe.
When the hotel does open, much of the food will also come from abroad. That's the nature of the business, no matter how much local sourcing you aim to achieve, especially with larger hotels. Keats told CJ that means regular imports from places like Florida, England and Europe.
The world of global logistics is a mixture of managing “chaos and culture,” he said.
“'If it's not one thing… it's another,'” is a quote from a character on “Saturday Night Live,”” Keats said. “We have to deal with a very diverse culture and rigidity. system and a lot of red tape. Terminals around the world are clogged, with cargo and containers potentially stranded abroad and in hubs in the region; such as Panama, Colombia, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. “
Keats said the key is to maintain accessibility and have contingency plans in place as the “logistics chessboard unfolds.”
“We provide updates that can plan for deviations, good news or bad news during an outage – this is news you can use.”
So in what other ways does Kestrel help hotels develop?
“There are Sandals and beach resorts throughout the region, the most recent being[the new Sandals on St. Vincent],” he said. Others include boutique hotels such as the Mandarin and Glossy Bay in the Grenadines. We are now involved in building a new resort in St. Thomas Haven Early stages of shipping furniture for the Hampton-Hilton Hotel. We are expanding with new hotel development in Guyana.”[新的圣文森特凉鞋”，”他说。其他酒店包括精品酒店，例如格林纳丁斯的Mandarin和GlossyBay。我们现在正参与为位于圣托马斯避风港的汉普顿希尔顿酒店运送家具的早期阶段。我们正在圭亚那开发新酒店，进行扩张。”[thenewSandalsSaintVincent’”hesaysOthersincludeboutiquehotelssuchastheMandarinandGlossyBayinthe GrenadinesWearenowinvolvedintheearlystagesforshippingfurniturefortheHampton-HiltonatHavensiteStThomas WeareexpandingwithnewhoteldevelopmentinGuyana”
All told, Kestrel has partnered with more than 40 of the Caribbean's top resorts.
Thinking about all the components of a hotel can actually deepen the vacation experience, Keats says.
“I hope guests gain a new appreciation for what is needed and focus on where things come from to make their trip more enjoyable.”
Because making your Caribbean vacation a reality is a global endeavor.
