SANDALS has poached Tradewinds managing director Chris May to spearhead a drive to boost its European and worldwide business.
May has been working out his notice for the last few months after being approached by Sandals boss Butch Stewart last summer.
The move follows the departure of the all-inclusive chain’s UK vice-president and director of sales Elaine Vaughan who quit in the summer. (Travel Weekly July 22 1998).
As Sandals’ new managing director for international markets, May’s remit will include Vaughan’s UK role of increasing sales but his main objective will be to develop the group’s sales and marketing operation in Europe and worldwide with the exception of North America, South America and Japan.
Until now, Sandals only conducted its UK marketing operations out of its London office but now plans to use it as a base for operations across Europe and globally.
May, who had been with Tradewinds 18 months, said: “It’s really sad to be leaving but Butch was offering me total autonomy to develop Sandals for the whole of the world. I thought to myself that these things don’t happen all the time.
“The intention is to increase our presence in Europe, and to this end, we have invested in multilingual staff across Sandals and Beaches resorts,” he said.
“Hopefully this will attract the customers we presently don’t have. Our hotels are dominated by the North American markets so we are trying to ensure that the percentage of people in hotels across the Caribbean has a higher European average.”
The move to improve on European/US customer ratios preceeds the opening of the chain’s 350-room all-suite Beaches Varadero in Cuba in March which will exclude the USmarket due to the USembargo on the Caribbean island.
A number of European marketing specialist appointments are expected to follow.
Meanwhile, May is to be replaced at Tradewinds on a temporary basis by Airtours director Matthew Cheetham. Cheetham has been overseeing the running of Airtours’ Eurosites division and will continue to do so while running Tradewinds.