SuperClubs buys Breezes Runaway Bay

SuperClubs chairman John Issa yesterday announced that he has bought Breezes Runaway Bay hotel after operating the 283 room all-inclusive property under a lease arrangement for approximately 20 years.

“We completed the purchase of this resort last month,” Issa told journalists at a breakfast meeting at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.

“This will allow us to proceed with our refurbishment plans without interference, just as we did at Hedonism II and Starfish Trelawny last year subsequent to their acquisitions,” he said.

Issa, in a later interview wit the Observer, declined to give the purchase price, however he said SuperClubs has allotted US$4 million for the first phase of the refurbishing.

The hotel was owned by Barbados Life after it acquired the majority shares in Life of Jamaica. SuperClubs leased the property in 1983, named it Jamaica Jamaica and ran it as an all-inclusive family resort that accepted children from age 14 up.

In the 1990s, the resort was brought under SuperClubs’ Breezes brand and promoted as a sports enthusiast’s haven as the chain continued it drive to package the seven hotels it operated on the island at the time.

Today, the chain has expanded to 15 resorts in six countries and yesterday Issa projected that by the end of 2004, SuperClubs will increase its total number of room to 6,750.

“We are looking at additional acquisitions at this time,” Issa added, “but will announce them after the acquisition.”

Picture caption: SuperClubs chairman, John Issa (right), has a brief discussion with his son,Joseph, executive vice-president of SuperClubs, shortly before the start of yesterday’s media breakfast hosted by the all-inclusive resort chain at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.