“We believe that the future is looking really strong,” said chairman and CEO of Margaritaville Caribbean Group, Ian Dear.

Margaritaville (Turks) was the worst-performing stock on the Jamaica Stock Exchange in 2021, ending the year at $16.00, down 63% from $43.42 at the start of the year. 

Speaking on Taking Stock with Kalilah Reynolds, Dear said the company, which was forced to close in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic, is already seeing positive signs of rebounding after reopening. 

Margaritaville Caribbean is a Jamaican owned company that operates in several countries.  It provides food, entertainment and hospitality services to tourists. 

Relying heavily on tourism, the company has continually been hit hard since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking a devastating blow when the Centres for Disease Control issued a no-sail warning to the cruise industry. 

Dear said that at the start of the pandemic, he had anticipated having to close the business for about three months. 

“I never believed that it could go beyond 90 days. I don’t believe any of us could have believed that we would still be talking about it [the pandemic] in 2022,” he said. 

He said that the company was forced to make difficult decisions to manoeuvre the pandemic. 

“The truth is we really had to figure out our costs and engage our team for them to understand what was taking place and create a sense of partnership that we are going to ride this thing out together,” he said.

The CEO said that the company released some 120 staff from its Grand Turk’s location, keeping only a skeleton crew to maintain the grounds. He noted that most of the employees were re-engaged since reopening.

The emergence of new variants of COVID-19, Dear said, keeps the company’s rebound growth uneven. 

“We actually had a decent summer starting around the middle of May … then things went a bit sideways again in August/September because of the spikes that were happening around that time because of the Delta variant,” he added. 

The shutdown and subsequent fluctuating business led to a net loss of US$1.38 million for the year ending May 2021, a first for the company since listing on the JSE.

“We listed on the stock exchange in April 2014 and every year since we listed, we have been profitable,” Dear said.

However, he noted that Margaritaville completely relied on the cruise ship business, s0 when the ships stopped calling, the entire cruise industry shut down. 

“When that happened we had no choice but to close our doors, and just really prepare for when we reopen,” he added. 

The CEO said that he is confident that things are beginning to turn around. He noted that the current winter season has been decent so far, despite another surge in virus cases caused by the Omicron variant. 

“Since we restarted [in December], we have enjoyed 31 ships, 58,000 customers and that is only going to continue to grow,” he said. 

“We believe in what we stand for, we know that our product is a great product,” he added. 

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