By Gay Nagle Myers From Travel Weekly

NEW YORK — Sandals has had a busy year with acquisitions, and the company isn’t done growing, according to CEO Adam Stewart.

“We are in expansion mode and are looking at two more destinations with a focus on the English-speaking Caribbean,” he said.

In a wide-ranging presentation on Tuesday at the JW Marriott Essex House New York, Stewart and his father Butch, the company’s founder and chairman, outlined Sandals’ acquisitions this year (Key West Village, now the fifth village at Beaches Turks & Caicos; Sandals Barbados, the former Couples Barbados, which opened Nov. 6; and the Sandals La Source in Grenada, which is on target to open Dec. 12).

Sandals alsohas agreed to operate a Beaches resort at the site of the shuttered Almond Beach Village on Barbados. No opening date has been set.

There will be some “firsts,” including Butch’s Chophouse restaurant at the Grenada resort; the Southern Comfort restaurant at Key West Village at Beaches Turks & Caicos; the first Indian restaurant in the resort chain, which will open at Sandals Barbados; soaking tubs and balcony pools in all 225 rooms in the Grenada resort; elevators installed in all the resorts; and a Chinese restaurant in one of the St. Lucia resorts.

Guestrooms across the board at Sandals and Beaches resorts have been refurbished and upgraded, Adam Stewart said. The private island resort of Fowl Cay was closed for seven weeks for a redo of the six villas, with a possible “four or five more to be added.”

Butch Stewart predicted double-digit growth in 2014 across its resort line and continued “steep growth” in weddings.

He also said travel agents “remain our core business partners. They always have been and on my watch they always will be.”

PHOTO: Adam and Butch Stewart

For more on this story go to:

http://www.travelweekly.com/Caribbean-Travel/Sandals-to-continue-aggressive-acquisition-strategy/