Page 25 - Club Rockley

Chapter 7
Rockley Resort Hotel “Club Rockley Barbados”
The hotel, initially called “Rockley Resort” opened just in time for the 1978/79 Winter Season, immediately making available almost 150 apartments on a self catering basis , with great sporting facilities on site, including squash, tennis, and golf. There was one medium sized restaurant on the ground floor of the converted old Club House, which had been built many years before by the original members- and which we had decided to retain- and this was the venue for nightly guest entertainment with local dance bands, fashion shows, Rum Punch parties, and featuring a Steak Barbecue and Bajan Buffet every week.
The Hotel operation had been conceived as a way of creating an investment return for the buyers of the apartments and Town Houses.
This proved to be a major challenge, right from the start, in various ways.
There is a saying that 90% of an hotels profit comes from the rooms division and 90% of the problems come from the food operation,
and experience tells me that there’s some truth in that. But there we were, the original Rockley Resort Hotel with a rooms division belonging to our owners and a food division belonging to us and with the first two or three years guests coming from the lower priced end of the tour operator’s market . All the rooms had well equipped kitchens and most of our guests were self catering enthusiasts from Canada, so it is not difficult to work out the problem we had created for ourselves. From the opening in 1978, to the conversion to an All Inclusive Hotel called Club Rockley Barbados (which I did as sole shareholder/owner in 1990/91.) The going was tough!
We had struggled through those early years with a “Management Rum Punch Party” evening with a good value Barbecue following and with regular excellent bands for dancing and a floor show also included. Great bands, excellent floor shows, but with very slim margins from our own business point of view. Looking back, it was a miracle that the self catering “Rockley Resort Hotel” lasted twelve years from 1978 to 1990. It certainly