Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, fierce competition drove the tourism industry. Businesses worked independently, with no sense of shared mission. Now, more than two years on, one industry executive said that's all changed.

On a recent episode of Influencers with Yahoo Finance’s Editor-In-Chief, Andy Serwer, Sandals Resorts Executive Chairman Adam Stewart explained how COVID-19's effects on the economy helped to "unify" players in the tourism industry.

“I saw in COVID, a level of unification amongst competitors, that was second to none,” Stewart told Yahoo Finance. “The cruise industry came together with the land-based hospitality industry, came together with the airlines, came together with associations like the World Travel and Tourism Council.”

Sandals is made up of five brands and has 24 properties in eight countries including, Antigua, The Bahamas, Grenada, Barbados, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Curaçao and Turks & Caicos.

Supply chain challenges

Stewart said the industry is now bearing the brunt of supply chain issues spurred by the pandemic as well as crushing inflation. For example, though many items sold by the tourism industry in Jamaica are manufactured locally, the country still relies heavily on overseas imports. For instance, Jamaica imported $1.12 billion worth of food in 2021, according to the International Trade Administration. Sixty percent of those imports were for the hotel, restaurant, and institutional sector.

“Just to get all the, what we call in the in the hotel industry, the circulating inventory — So, the linens and the food and all the elements that we can procure locally, but even locally, right now in Jamaica, we're having issues with glass bottles.” Stewart said. “So, for alcohol products, they're just unable to get the raw materials to finish the product.”

Stewart added that the global chip shortage is also creating challenges for his company's work with the automobile business. “Our group is also in the car business. We represent BMW and Mini for this region in the Caribbean, [and there have been] lots of supply issues between chips and different elements made within the cars,” he said.