Over 700 rooms for Jewel & Hilton portfolio

President and CEO of  Sagicor Group, Christopher Zacca has announced that an additional 760 rooms are to be added to the combined Jewel & Hilton Hotel portfolio.

Zacca made the announcement while speaking about Sagicor's partnership with Playa Hotels & Resorts at the company's annual general meeting on Friday.

“We will move from 1,320 Jewel rooms to 2,008, an additional hundred in Dunn’s River , 250 in Runaway Bay, 30 in Paradise Cove, 80 at the Hilton Rose Hall and 300 new rooms at the Jewel Grande.

Playa Hotels & Resorts is the leader in luxury all-inclusive oceanfront resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico.

News came earlier this year that Sagicor and Playa had reached agreement on combining hotel operations.

Sagicor said it would contribute its portfolio of all-inclusive resorts and land sites in Jamaica. 

In exchange, the group would receive 20 million Playa shares and US$100 million in cash.  

Sagicor's holdings in Playa will be 15 per cent, making it the second largest shareholder in the company.

Zacca also said the Jamaican economy will benefit from large investments which Playa will embark on over the next three years, with an additional $US200 million scheduled to be spent on the construction of 760 additional rooms.

This, he said, was a very "positive" development, "and squarely fitting into our view that we should also be national builders, not just profit makers."