Hotelier Barry Collymore on The Caribbean’s Untapped Advantage

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On this episode of Suite Success, host Katie Cline speaks with Barry Collymore, a prominent Barbadian-born hotelier, developer, and tourism leader based in Grenada. His work spans multiple facets of the Caribbean tourism industry—he’s the Owner and Executive Chairman of Mount Cinnamon Beach & Wellness Resort, as well as the Director and Partner of the West Indies Management Company. He also co-founded the West Indies School of Hospitality, which aims to create learning paths for Caribbean people in the Hospitality and Service Industries.

Barry’s career spans journalism, government, tourism leadership, and resort ownership — including serving as Press Secretary to the Prime Minister of Grenada and Chairman of the Grenada Tourism Authority. Today, he’s focused on developing world-class Caribbean hospitality while investing in the next generation of industry leaders.

This conversation explores what true wellness really looks like, and why it has far more to do with nature, community, and rhythm of life than spa menus and cold plunges. It also highlights Barry’s vision for the Caribbean as a collective tourism powerhouse. Whether you’re a hotelier, a tourism leader, or simply someone who loves to travel, Barry’s perspective offers a thoughtful look at the future of hospitality.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lodgify and Bilt!⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠Connect with Barry⁠:

⁠⁠Barry’s LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-collymore-99222a10/

⁠⁠⁠Mount Cinnamon’s Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.mountcinnamon.com/

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0:37

Meet Barry Collymore

Click the link in the show notes to get started.

I’m Barry Collymore, and you’re listening to Suite Success.

You’ve just checked in to Suite Success. Join me, Katie Cline, for exclusive conversations with hotel executives, hospitality leaders and industry innovators.

Together, we’ll uncover the strategies and techniques these Masters of Hospitality relentlessly refine. Whether you’re already in the industry or just starting out, tune in every week to unlock the secret to your Suite Success.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Suite Success. I’m your host, Katie Cline, and today I’m thrilled to welcome Barry Collymore to the show.

Barry is a prominent Barbadian-born hotelier, developer, and tourism leader based in Grenada.

He’s the owner and executive chairman of Mount Cinnamon Beach & Wellness Resort, as well as the director and partner of the West Indies Management Company, which is involved in hotel and tourism development within the country.

He also co-founded the West Indies School of Hospitality, which aims to create learning paths for Caribbean people in the hospitality and service industries.

Formerly a regional journalist and PR professional, Barry held other notable roles such as the press secretary to the prime minister of Grenada, the chairman of the Grenada Tourism Authority, and taught at St. George’s University.

Barry, thank you so much for joining me today.

You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure. Thank you for thinking about Grenada and Mount Cinnamon.

I have to tell you, I have interviewed a lot of really impressive people, but reading your bio, crafting your introduction, I was honestly blown away.

There’s so much you’re actively involved in. How do you find time for everything and do you actually sleep at all?

2:34

All About Grenada

Yes, I do sleep.

It’s very important. I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m able to perform so many different roles and do so many different things.

I do prioritize sleep, but it comes from within the passion that I have for making Grenada and the Caribbean a better place, playing my role, playing my contribution here, contributing in many and all different ways that I can.

And that’s one of the things that has driven me, my passion to make the Caribbean a better place.

And for anyone who is watching on YouTube, Barry is in the most gorgeous setting that this podcast has ever witnessed. I was telling him I want to jump through the screen and be sitting right next to him.

It is a dreary rainy day here in New York, and Barry is just on the beach with the waves in the background. You look like a postcard right now.

This is our world famous Grand Anse Beach. Mount Cinnamon is located on Grand Anse Beach.

3:42

Mount Cinnamon

It’s two miles of beautiful white sand. To me, it’s one of the best beaches in the world because there’s lots of beaches with white sands. There’s lots of beaches with clear water.

There’s lots of beaches with calm water. But what we have here on Grand Anse is we have all of those things, beautiful white sand, clear water, calm water, nothing dangerous in the water while you’re swimming.

But what we also have is that the beach is framed by the beautiful mountains from the interior of Grenada. So when you go into the water, all around you are beautiful mountains, green lush mountains. It’s so beautiful.

Wow.

And let’s talk about Mount Cinnamon Beach & Wellness Resort. Can you give me a bit of the back story, the origin story behind the property?

Sure. Mount Cinnamon was built in the late 1970s and opened as a luxury resort located on one of the most beautiful places, one of the most beautiful places that you can find on Earth.

One of the good things about Mount Cinnamon is that you have the beach and you have the views because the hotel is slightly elevated in the hills of Grenada and then you have a gentle slope down to the beach.

It is a boutique resort with 50 bedrooms, catering to families, couples, multi-generational families, single travelers. It’s really a resort for everyone. It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, it’s romantic.

It’s not a crowded resort that you find in the A-lister and the party constantly.

But if you want to enjoy the sound of waves, if you want to eat fresh natural food that’s been grown in Grenada, if you want to wake up to the sound of the birds, if you want to engage in all of our on-property activities like beautiful diving,

tennis, yoga or just strolling the beach, Mount Cinnamon is certainly the place for you. tennis, yoga or just strolling the beach, Mount Cinnamon is certainly the place for you.

5:48

Defining Wellness

We have two of the things that we’re strongest on, our wellness, beach tourism, because this is such a beautiful beach. So if you want to be on a beautiful beach, Mount Cinnamon is the place to be.

And certainly our gastronomy, because our food is all fresh and locally grown, and our culinary program is headed by a really talented chef, Chef Jason Joseph, who was just a master in the kitchen.

Wow. I am sold. I am currently packing my bags.

This interview is ending here, folks. No, just joking. But tell me a little bit more about how you define what a wellness resort really is and how you offer that to your guests.

So for us, wellness is not a foreign concept because Grenada is a wellness island.

And let me explain. You wake up in the morning, not to the sound of traffic, but you wake up to the birds chirping. So you don’t need any white noise or any alarm clocks to wake you up.

The birds will wake you up. So you wake up in a good mood. You walk down to the beach and it’s not crowded.

There’s no crowds. You can walk to the beach. The entire length of the beach or run it if you’re so inclined.

And there’s just a community of local and visitors walking to the beach. So you get that community aspect, that connection that is so important in wellness.

Then you go to breakfast and you go to lunch and all the food is locally grown and freshly prepared. And it’s grown with, it’s augmented with locally grown organic spices. All of that is wellness.

The yoga that we do is right here on the beach. You don’t need music because you’re doing yoga to the songs of the waves. As we are here now, there’s a beautiful song of the waves.

That’s all you’re hearing. You’re not hearing any sirens or cars or anything like that. Just the waves.

And all of that is wellness. The air that you breathe is mountain air coming down from the mountains. It’s clean, it’s crisp, it’s unpolluted.

All of that is wellness. And then you go to sleep at night again to the songs of the frogs and the crickets. You don’t need white noise.

You don’t need any sleep. The deepest sleep that you can get, all of that is wellness. And then there’s so many activities from scuba diving to hiking to running or walking on the beach.

We have a beautiful tennis court here at Mount Cinnamon. Wellness is not something that we had to impose on the resort. Wellness was all around us.

So to me, it was all we needed to do was put it in the name. So this is why it was so easy. So if you live in Grenada, you have a wellness lifestyle.

If you visit Grenada, we offer that wellness lifestyle to you organically. It doesn’t have to be imposed.

Yes. I love what you are saying because you’re right, especially in these really hectic cosmopolitan cities, we are trying to force in pieces of wellness to then tolerate everything else.

And what you are so eloquently explaining to us is that true wellness is really in every aspect of our lives.

9:28

How Grenada Became Home

If you come to Grenada and you are visiting Grenada, you are going to live a wellness lifestyle.

I don’t need to buy cold plunge equipment because after exercise in the morning, I go straight into the ocean with the natural minerals and salts in the ocean. It feels just as good as the cold plunge. All of these things are near all.

God has given us all of these wellness gifts here in Grenada. This is how we live and we really want to share these things with our guests and our visitors who come to Grenada.

I can hear the passion in your voice when you speak about Grenada as a destination, but I understand that you’re from Barbados, originally another absolutely stunning destination.

When did you first visit Grenada and when did you decide to make it home?

Well, I came to Grenada over 20 years ago. Previously, I’ve never visited Grenada, but I came to work with the St. George’s University here.

And my contract was three years. And I said to myself, I’ll spend two and a half, three years here. And then I already had another job lined up after that, because I was recruited with being recruited for another company.

But then I never left because I felt that I found the place that I needed to be. And it was nothing to do with money or anything else.

Why did I not leave Grenada after I came here was because the quality of life that I was living in Grenada, I thought I would never be able to live that in any other country.

11:08

From Guest to Owner

And this is after I had lived in four other countries. And I said, nope, this is it. I’m not going to be able to live this quality of life, so I’m living in Grenada anywhere else.

And it has to do with community, it has to do with wellness, it has to do with safety, all of those things. And I said, this is it.

What other countries had you lived in previously?

So I had lived in the United Kingdom as a student, the United States as a student, Barbados and Jamaica.

Wow. Wow. And when you came over, you said you were teaching at St.

George’s. So talk me through how that 20 years progressed, how you went from teaching at St. George’s to now owner of this resort, leading a huge development company in the region, starting a hospitality school.

How did all of that transpire?

Well, it’s a long story, but I’m going to shorten it as much as I can.

We’ve got time.

It all revolved around Mount Cinnamon. And this is funny. It’s a funny story, I’ll tell you.

When I came here in 1998 to work for St. George’s University, they said to me, oh, we will accommodate you at a local hotel for the first four weeks, and then you have to find your own accommodation.

But they picked me up at the airport, I’m driving to the hotel, and what do you know? The hotel that they brought me to was Mount Cinnamon. It was called Cinnamon Hill at the time.

And I checked in to Mount Cinnamon as a guest. So then I got busy working with the university. I was traveling immediately because I worked directly for the Vice Chancellor of the university.

And I got really busy. So the hotel manager at the time said to me, she said to me, Mr. Collymore, have you found a place to stay yet?

And I said, no, not yet, but I’m still looking. She said, would you like to live here? I said, sure.

She said, well, we have one or two rooms that we rent to long-term guests. If you would like to do that, you can rent a room here. I said, well, that’s amazing.

So I then stepped into Mount Cinnamon as a tenant. I lived at Mount Cinnamon as a tenant. It was great.

Then I left the university and I went to work to the Prime Minister as his Senior Advisor and Press Secretary. And we met, Prime Minister and I met a developer called Peter de Savory.

I remember we were, I was flying with him on his plane and we were talking about Grenada and so on. We had struck up a great rapport.

And he said to me when we got to Grenada, he said to me, I’d like you to come and see me, Barry, and let’s talk about what I’m doing, what I do in Grenada, what I will do in Grenada.

We had a conversation, we chatted, and he said to me, there’s two projects I’d like to do there, Port Louis and Mount Cinnamon. And I’d like to hire you as one of my advisors and my board members for Grenada in the Caribbean.

And I said to him, I said, I already have a job. And he said, don’t worry. I’ll sort it out.

I’ll talk to the Prime Minister. We’ll do something. He got back to me and he said, okay, Barry, you work four days a week for me and four days for the Prime Minister.

Well, I said, well, a week only had eight days, seven days in it. So you can imagine my work schedule.

So here I was then checking into Mount Cinnamon as part of a development team and redeveloping the resort, remodeling it, and I was leading, well, as part of the development team, doing over Mount Cinnamon, changing it from Cinnamon Hill to Mount

Cinnamon. So now I am working directly on the board and directly for the company, developing, redeveloping Mount Cinnamon.

Years went by, I continued to do that, worked with his development company, and then four years ago, three and a half, four years ago, Peter de Savry said to me, Barry, would you like to step into my shoes and buy me out? And I said, sure.

And it took us about a year to get the detail of the deal done, but we got it done, and on October 1st that year, I checked in to Mount Cinnamon as the owner of the resort.

15:56

Public and Private Sector Work

So that’s in a nutshell what happened. It went through many different stages. I’ve done many different things during that time, but here we are today.

What an incredible full story, full circle moment.

I mean, that, what an amazing, amazing, yes, absolutely. That is such a great story and almost weirdly feels like Mount Cinnamon was fated to find you.

Yep.

Going back to becoming the Press Secretary to the Prime Minister, you spoke about that so nonchalantly, but that’s a really big deal, a really big job. How did that come to be? Did you meet them while you were working at St.

George’s? Or how did that happen?

Yeah, it was a big job, but I was doing a lot of work with the university because I was Assistant to the Vice Chancellor and an Associate Professor of St. George’s University at the same time. And I was doing a lot of work.

We were doing a lot of work in the community of Grenada, doing different things, different projects. St. George’s University has a very Grenada focused agenda.

And I was leading that agenda at the time. So naturally that got some attention from people in government. And the Prime Minister called me at the time and he offered me and said to me, I’ve seen what you’re doing with the university.

Would you like to come work for me?

Wow, that’s incredible. And now having worked so closely with government, how does that perspective influence how you approach private development?

I think that working with government is number one, it teaches you the rules of land and the name of the land and so on.

A lot of people come into development and they impose their ideas where they got from, that they got from other countries onto the country that they’re developing.

And I think having worked in government and knowing the country so intimately, and knowing the Caribbean so intimately, it gave me the opportunity to use my knowledge to become even more effective in terms as a developer because I knew the lay of the

land, I knew what to do, what not to do. Because governments and private sector, they’re almost in parallel, and although they should be together, they’re in parallel. And they’re lines sometimes that almost never connect.

So that governments are very focused on procedure and process, and the private sector is very much focused on results.

So that something that could be done in the private sector in two steps, it may take government 10 steps to do, not because they’re trying to make it difficult, but because a government has a higher standard of accountability than a private sector

company. A lot of developers don’t realize that, and that’s where people get into trouble. You’ve got to respect the government processes, and then government has to also respect a developer’s time of the essence philosophy, which is also important.

With such a multifaceted career, journalist, PR professional, press secretary to the prime minister, chairman of the Tourism Authority, hotel owner, developer, educator, when you zoom out, is there a common thread that connects it all for you?

I think the common thread is, my common thread was a love for my region, the Caribbean region, and to see Caribbean excellence, to reach Caribbean excellence. And that was a common thread for me in all of these things.

Just serving my region, serving the countries that I’ve lived in, and really trying to have to create products that are the best and can be compared to anywhere globally.

I’ve always worked for outstanding Caribbean institutions, and an outstanding Caribbean government at the time, and it’s always been my dream, because I really believe that the Caribbean is only, is not where it can be.

20:29

Caribbean Unity

It can be much further. I had globally, we have not, as a Caribbean region, we have not reached our full potential, or nearly reached our full potential. The things that make us very special, we have not capitalized enough on.

And we are such a unique part of the world, that people need to, enough people don’t know about us. And we haven’t done a good enough job in letting people know about this Caribbean lifestyle that I described.

It’s really interesting what you’re saying.

And it reminds me of when I visited Umbria in Italy, and they were saying, we have the same level of quality wines as Tuscany, but we haven’t done a good job as a region of marketing ourselves effectively the way that Tuscany has.

So with your background in journalism, communications, what are ways that you think the world can become more aware of everything that the Caribbean is already offering?

Well, the problem with the Caribbean is always structured. You have many different islands will govern by many different governments and every government trying to create an infrastructure for itself.

But what you end up with is 15 small buildings instead of one large skyscraper. And this is the problem. None of our Caribbean leaders have fully recognized the true value of Caribbean unity.

And let me give you an example on the tourism front. More than 50% of the visitors that come to the Caribbean region are going to Mexico.

Not because Mexico is better than the Caribbean region, but because it’s better packaged and better marketed and so on. There’s so many different options and different things to do in Mexico. And they have taken time to create a product.

They created Cancun, they created Tulum. They’ve created so many different areas that are different. And people feel that they go to Mexico and have different experiences.

We have Caribbean islands that have different experiences, different cultures and so on. But yet our Caribbean governments are trying to create, set up a tourism board in Barbados.

We set up a Barbados Gold Zip Alone, Grenada Gold Zip Alone and Tiga Gold Zip Alone.

Instead of recognizing that if we were to create a common Caribbean product backed by common Caribbean marketing, and then what you do is then you create an airline free zone where you have interregional travel, very cheap and very hassle free with

no immigration once you’re traveling like traveling in the European Union. Then what you create then is a Caribbean master product where a visitor then feels comfortable going to Barbados and spending two days, and then going to Grenada and spending

two days, and then going to St. Lucia and spending two days, and instead of Barbados competing with its neighbors, Grenada competing with its neighbors, Vincent competing with its neighbors. So that’s part of the problem. You need joint marketing.

You need an airline free zone where people can travel very inexpensively with the airline. The intra-regional airlines are not taxed, and they keep the prices low, and by no taxes, you encourage more development in the airline sector.

And then when you get on the airline and you go from Barbados to St. Vincent, there’s no immigration. You’re free cleared before you get there.

There’s just customs and you go through quite easily and so on. And what you get after you do that is a Caribbean super product that people feel that this is something that more people see it, you get more eyes on it.

And like Mexico has done, and although these islands are separated by water, it’s nothing. It’s just a short flight from all of these islands.

So that’s part of the problem that we have not fully, because of our structures, everybody’s going it alone.

And I guess with egos involved and so on, but what we are doing is we are creating a glass ceiling that we will not break unless we come together more as a region and market our region together and create, as I said, a taller building, brighter

That was such a beautiful example, and it really clearly illustrates what we were talking about before of how your knowledge of working within government and your knowledge now as a private sector developer can really come together.

And even the example you were giving around taxes for airlines and how can we spur airlines wanting to come into the area and therefore spur demand, which is then going to be good for governments, etc., etc.

It’s so obvious when you put it like that and you gave some rationale as to why it hasn’t happened yet. Do you see a path forward that that could potentially come to happen?

The path forward is for more people like yourself to speak about it and to illustrate it and some more research to be done on it.

But also we need new ideas in government, new leaders in government to be able to grasp people who are not so inward looking, who we need to reduce parochialism and promote more regionalism.

26:44

Building Talent With WISH

And organizations like the Caribbean Tourism Organization need to be given greater prominence. And then also, we need to, somebody needs to, and I might do it, needs to put together the case of what if we did that? What would it be?

What would happen? Etc, etc. And we need to, that’s the kind of thing that needs to happen.

But we need new thinking. And that’s part of the problem that we have. We need new thinking around tourism.

I am seeing how your bio has become so long, because like you just said, you’re like, if no one else is going to do it, I might be the one to do it, because somebody needs to.

And I think that’s a beautiful segue to everything that you are creating with the West Indies School of Hospitality. Talk about bringing in new ideas, fresh blood, people into the industry. It also has the best acronym of all time, WISH.

I love that. So what inspired you to co-found that organization?

It was simple. My friend, Danny Fakry, they are friends of mine. He is a developer as well.

And we were doing projects together. We have a common way in which we think. He is a Grenadian, a British slash international guy.

And what would happen is we would do projects in the Caribbean, we would do projects here. All of the hotel developers, they build beautiful buildings, beautiful pools, beautiful gardens, et cetera, with tons of amenities.

But no one is focused on building the people who have to run these resorts. So you build a resort, 300 rooms, 250 rooms, whatever it is, beautiful resort. And then the last minute, you think about who’s going to run the resort.

So what happens is you get some local talent, which is, so you poach from other hotels, or you poach from other, or you get some new talent.

But then a lot of the talent you have to import because there’s still no, the thinking of people about the careers in tourism in the Caribbean is still not fully developed.

People, though, a lot of the brightest people aren’t getting into tourism, and they should because the rewards are tremendous in terms of career opportunities, potential for growth in the industry, and so on.

So that is really the foundation of the West Indies School of Hospitality. We wanted to build people, and we wanted to create barriers to eliminate barriers to entry for people who wanted to study more, and so on.

So what we did was we created WISH, had a partnership with Cornell University, E-Cornell Platform, and the Colerney Institute of America, and then we had some local resources as well.

And we gave over 2,000 scholarships, just allowing people to study, to develop themselves. And I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to do.

In fact, my current general manager, who’s been my GM now for a year and a half, she is a product of WISH, and I’m very proud of what she’s doing here at the resort. And I look at other hotels and so on that have benefitted from the WISH courses.

It’s amazing. So the main idea behind WISH was to focus on the development of people, of our Caribbean people.

Everything you’re saying about tourism and hospitality, I could not agree with more. I have spoken to so many people on this podcast who are in incredible roles, much like yourself. People who are CEOs of companies, owners of hotels, etc.

And so often, the story is, I started at the front desk, or I started as a concierge, or I started as a bellman, or back of house.

And I think it’s very rare to find an industry where that is not uncommon, to have the kind of grow up through the industry and the opportunities presented.

And I’m just so impressed by someone taking the time and effort to put together a world-class program.

See, really what I’m hearing from you, Barry, is you see the long vision of things, where so many times, especially in publicly traded organizations, it’s really about what’s the next quarter going to look like.

You’re looking at not only your hotel and your destination for right now, but what’s it going to look like in years, in decades, in generations?

31:35

Next Gen Skills

For sure.

We have to take the long game because this is the industry. There are still a lot of tourism, what I call tourism deniers in the Caribbean. They say, no, tourism is fragile.

We need to diversify in the region. But here’s what. This is what we have.

This is what the region has. This is what makes us globally competitive, it’s tourism.

So we need to double down, triple down on it, develop for our people, develop for our product more and create a truly world-class product, which the rest of the world is the envy of the rest of the world. And I believe we can do it.

You are giving me chills by saying that. I absolutely agree. What are the main skills you think the next generation of hospitality leaders need to develop?

I think that one of the areas that we are sadly lacking is Caribbean-trained chefs.

When I say Caribbean-trained chefs, I mean, chefs that have gone right to the pinnacle of their training. Because too much, many hotels, when I was doing my new restaurant here, for instance, at Mount Cinnamon, everybody had an idea.

What should we do? Somebody said I should do Italian. Somebody said I should do French.

Somebody said I should do something else. And for me, the important thing was to do a Caribbean restaurant, celebrating Caribbean food, celebrating Caribbean slavers, celebrating Caribbean spices, headed by a Caribbean chef.

And those are the kinds of things that we need to develop. We need to develop the next cadre of great Caribbean chefs who then develop a truly Caribbean cuisine that is something that is desired by the rest of the world.

And Caribbean food does not have to be low quality and not plated properly and not presented properly. It can be all of that. That’s what we do at our Caribbean restaurant here called The Flying Fish.

We do Caribbean food, but it’s presented and made in a way that it’s world class and can compete anywhere else. So that’s one area, the chefs.

I also do believe that they’re senior management physicians that we need to really develop in the region where there can be more Caribbean general managers and assistant general managers and so on.

I think that we need to also have a heavy focus on service because I believe that service drives commerce. We need to have a national, a Caribbean-wide approach on service just to drill down to make sure that our service is the best it can be.

Because I believe that organically our service is really good, but it just needs some refinement in many other areas in respect. And then the other area that we need to develop are the people then servicing the tourism industry.

I am very concerned that many hotels are not being built by Caribbean builders even though they are being built in the Caribbean. They are not being designed by Caribbean architects.

I see so many bad examples of some architects from somewhere who has no concept of things like the breeze blowing through. They build all of these walls in hotels, making them very…

and then have to spend lots of money cooling them rather than letting the breeze go through because they don’t have a concept of what the Caribbean is. And so some of our builders, our architects and other service providers.

So we need to train our people who are directly involved in the industry, like the chefs and the managers and the guest services people more. And also we need to train and educate the service providers, like builders, architects, even our farmers.

We need to create model farms. How do we grow food that better serves the tourism industry? All of these things, and it’s a big project, but it’s doable and it’s worth doing.

We see so often in the industry where, exactly like you said, it’s like, let’s import this chef from here or let’s import this cuisine here.

And I almost wonder if it’s a bit of a hangover from the travel and tourism industry 20, 30, 40 years ago. Because by and large, I believe, me personally, when I travel someplace, I want to feel like I’m in the destination that I’m in.

If I wanted to have a cheeseburger that I could have in New York City, I can just stay in New York City. But if I’m in Grenada, I want to be eating Grenadian food, right?

And everything that you’re talking about, from architecture, from food, from who is working on the property, it’s all about bringing that local in.

And you said something earlier, which I think is so brilliant, that in the Caribbean, one of your unique selling points is the beautiful beaches, the beautiful land, the fact that people want to come visit because it is so gorgeous.

So in a way, how do you double down on that USP, that locality through all of those other areas on what you touched?

Yeah, you double down by really emphasizing it. Look, if we have, and this is what we’re trying to do here at Mount Cinnamon, making the cuisine as Caribbean as possible.

When you come to Mount Cinnamon, there’s so many times that I travel the different parts of the world, I meet no one from that particular country because all of the front desk staffs and all of the people on the guest services staff are people who

are from other countries who’ve come in to get work in that particular country. I think that if tourists want to travel, to get to learn more about the country and if the taxi drivers aren’t native and the guest services people aren’t native and the

chefs aren’t native, it diminishes the impact of the product in some extent. But we need to, I think we need to have the leader of tourism recognize that the product is not just the hotel, the product is the entire country or the entire region that

you’re in. So we need to spend more time focusing on how do we not just develop a hotel, but how do we develop that region, that island, that country that you’re in, to better serve the tourism industry and by extension serve itself.

38:34

Grenada Misconceptions

Because if you’re creating more opportunities in tourism, you’re creating more opportunities for the place itself. So those are the kinds of things that I believe that we need to do.

And once we keep doing them, because that’s why people are traveling.

People are traveling, you know, you were traveling to have a change, to do something different, to not to be your normal environment, for change of pace, for change of people, that’s what change of scene. That’s why you’re traveling.

You’re not traveling to have an exact carbon copy of where you were before. No.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about Grenada or just in general, what do you wish the world knew about Grenada?

First of all, I wish more of the world knew about Grenada. We are still too unknown. We’re still the best kept secret.

I don’t want it to be a secret anymore. But what do I wish the world knew about Grenada? I wish the world knew just the quality of lives that we have here.

When you visit Grenada, it’s not just about staying in a hotel and being walled into a resort.

When you visit Grenada, you have an entire island open to you with people who are happy that you are here, happy to see you, happy to share their experiences with you, happy to educate you on the customs of the island, happy to share their food and

their homes and their traditions with you, happy for you to participate in the cultural activities like carnival. It’s a true family island and we in Grenada are happy to welcome you as part of that family.

Barry, I want to ask you the last three questions that I ask every guest. And the first is, what was the best hospitality experience that you have ever had?

I think that the best hospitality experience that I have are staying in the Caribbean Boutique Resorts. Because the Caribbean Boutique Resort is, first of all, they’re not handed down a set of rules from a chain, right?

They are resorts that the owners and the staff, they don’t just care about the resort, they care about the island or the region that they’re in.

So some of the places like Half Moon and Naya Beach in Belize, and Half Moon in Jamaica, Naya Beach in Belize, you know, those are the kinds of resorts, those Caribbean Boutique Resorts, that really give you a true sense of what the island is, and

also a real high quality resort experience. And that’s what we are doing here at Mount Cinnamon. We are giving you a very high quality vacation and the immersion in this high quality of life that we have here in Grenada. So that’s the best for me.

You cannot get better than a Caribbean Boutique Resort.

On the opposite side of that, what was the worst hospitality experience you’ve ever had?

I can’t say that I’ve had a lot of bad hospitality experiences, to be honest. So I’ve only had really good, I think for me, what’s disappointing is when I travel and I don’t get to meet the people of the place where I’m found.

So all the people around me are, and there’s nothing wrong with importing labour, but it shouldn’t be used to, because you don’t have local labour, it should be used to augment and make the local labour better.

So sometimes I’m disappointed when I go to places and everybody else is from a different country and we really don’t get to interact with the people at home that you were with people, the country that you visited.

Final question for you. What does hospitality mean to you? And is there anyone, a person, a brand that you think has truly mastered it?

Hospitality to me means caring, caring for the person, caring for your guests that come to visit you.

Do you truly care about their experiences? Do you care about how they enjoyed their vacation?

And to me, hospitality is about making sure that the person who comes to visit you leaves in a better frame of mind, more at peace and happier than when they came to visit you.

To me, the Caribbean Boutique Resort is an example of the pinnacle of hospitality, because Caribbean Boutique Resorts are not just focused on selling a room or the experiences within the hotel.

43:36

Suite Summary

They are giving you the entire country, the entire region that you are visiting and connecting your vacation not just with the hotel, but connecting it with the entire country.

These Caribbean Boutique Resorts really fly the flag of the country that they are locating in. And they are some of the best examples of global hospitality.

Barry, thank you so much again for joining us today, for letting me to look at your background that looks like a screen saver and just calming my entire nervous system. I’m going to go pack my bag, run to JFK and I’ll see you in a couple of hours.

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much.

All right, everyone, it’s time for today’s Suite Summary, where I break down the key insights and actionable takeaways from today’s conversation.

Speaking with Barry today, seated with the beach behind him and waves rolling in the background, he was the embodiment of calm, completely unhurried, completely present.

He himself is such a personification of his own philosophy around wellness, not the version we so often see marketed to ourselves, 60-minute spa treatments and quick cold plunges, but something much more holistic and human.

Sleep, movement, local food, fresh air, the natural rhythm of the environment around us. Even something as simple as not needing artificial white noise to fall asleep, because the sound of the ocean is already there.

He reminded us that the most powerful forms of well-being are the ones that already exist in nature, we just have to slow down long enough to notice them.

Another part of our conversation that really stayed with me was Barry’s perspective on the Caribbean. Rather than competing island by island, he spoke about the power of the region working together as a collective destination.

Instead of building 15 small buildings, partnering together to create a skyscraper.

It’s the idea that a rising tide really does raise all ships, and his background in both government and private sector development uniquely positions him to help both sides see the opportunity in that kind of collaboration.

In order to do so, he spoke about the need to be open to change, to challenge the old mindset and recognize when it’s creating a glass ceiling. That’s exactly why he helped create the West Indies School of Hospitality.

Why shouldn’t the best chefs, the top managers and renowned architects all be locally grown? His passion for the destination came through in every single thing Barry said. The region’s cuisine, its natural resources, and most importantly, its people.

Which, when you think about it, brings us right back to his definition of wellness. Because true well-being isn’t just about taking care of ourselves, it’s about taking care of the places and communities that sustain us too.

That concludes another episode of Suite Success. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please subscribe, rate, and review the show. We all know how important those five-star reviews are.

I also want to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you for tuning in. It means the absolute world to me. I’d love to hear from you.

If you have ideas for future guests, new topics to cover, or even just want to say hi, don’t be shy. Message me through our website, suitesuccesspodcast.com, or on social media, at suitesuccesspodcast.com. That’s Suite like Hotel Suite.

Once again, I’m your host Katie Cline, and I’m super excited to see you all next week.