- 522-room beachfront resort reopens under Marriott in 2028
- Property was Holiday Inn, then Catalonia, before closing
- Closed after Hurricane Melissa damage
- Part of Marriott’s wider Caribbean all-inclusive push
A beachfront resort near Sangster International Airport, formerly the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort and most recently the Catalonia Montego Bay, will reopen in 2028 under Marriott International’s flagship hotel brand, following an agreement between Marriott and Catalonia Hotels and Resorts. The property closed after Hurricane Melissa and had already been earmarked for major refurbishment before the brand change was finalised.
The rebuilt resort will feature 522 guest rooms, 13 dining outlets, three swimming pools, meeting facilities, a spa, fitness centre, tennis and pickleball courts, a lazy river and more than 2,100 feet of beachfront, according to Marriott. Laurent de Kousemaeker, the company’s chief development officer for the Caribbean and Latin America, described the agreement as a significant milestone in Marriott’s all-inclusive strategy, building on an existing relationship with Catalonia through the Renaissance Barcelona Fira Hotel in Spain.
The Montego Bay deal is one piece of a considerably larger regional push. Marriott currently operates 38 all-inclusive properties across nine markets in the Caribbean and Latin America, with a further 16 projects representing roughly 5,600 rooms already in the region’s development pipeline. Manuel Valenzuela, Catalonia’s chief commercial and operations officer, framed the arrangement as mutual confidence, Catalonia gaining Marriott’s brand recognition while supporting its own international growth.
The rebrand illustrates a pattern likely to recur across Jamaica’s hurricane-damaged hotel stock: storm damage that would otherwise simply mean a slow, like-for-like refurbishment instead becomes the opening for an ownership or brand change, since a property closed for reconstruction anyway is a natural moment for a major international operator to step in. Whether other Melissa-damaged properties along the north coast follow the same path, closure becoming a rebrand rather than a straightforward repair, is likely to become clearer as more of the storm’s affected hotel inventory works through its own reconstruction decisions over the next two years.
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