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Jon Martineau
Jon Martineau has
certainly had an illustrious career in tourism. It
started out at the Barbados Hilton where he spent
two years after graduating from the Confederate
College of Applied Arts and Technology in Thunder
Bay, Ontario . Thereafter he joined the Marriott
chain of hotels where he held the posts of Catering
Service Manager and Director of
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Restaurants
during a 14 1/2 year sojourn in Vail, Colorado; Long
Island, New York; Saddlebrook, New Jersey and then
back to Barbados to the Marriott’s Sam Lords Castle
as Director of Food & Beverage and then Director of
Sales & Marketing.
In 1993 Martineau decided it was time to move on and
he left the Marriott hotel chain. The following year
was spent in consulting until Martineau decided to
venture into the land of wood and water, Jamaica to
work at the Poinciana Beach Resort. Then in February
1995 he joined the St. James Beach Hotels in
Barbados to manage its four properties before
leaving in March 1998 to join Accra Beach Hotel
Resort.
Today Jon Martineau is still at the Accra Beach
Hotel & Resort as the General Manager. He considers
his greatest accomplishment during his time at Accra
as having made the hotel “a household name” in
Barbados , “a place to be and a place to go”. He
also notes that most of the clientele in Wytukai,
Accra ’s Polynesian restaurant is local.
Asked the role of the hotelier in this country’s
tourism, Martineau points first to the development
of human resources as the main job. Mr. Martineau
asserts that “Hoteliers should be open to allowing
students of the hospitality schools to do field work
so that they would not be green when they graduate”.
He added that “an environment must be created where
staff is empowered to make decisions.” He confesses
that “trying to establish consistency in service
levels” is his most difficult job.
On a more intimate level, Mr. Martineau attributes
his success to the fact that he is a “very
self-disciplined person”. He has been happily
married for 26 years to Maggie and they have a son
and a daughter. Jon enjoys jazz , travelling, good
food and wine and simply aspires to enjoy a good
quality of life for himself and his family. |
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