Sanovnik Destang, Executive Director - Bay Gardens Resorts

Sanovnik Destang is the Executive Director and a Shareholder of Bay Gardens Resorts, a group of locally-owned hotels in Saint Lucia consisting of 233 rooms, 7 conference rooms and 5 restaurants across four hotels all located in St. Lucia’s entertainment capital, Rodney Bay Village. 

A Chartered Accountant (CA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Sanovnik spent 4 years working at KPMG in Toronto working in the fields of Audit and Business Advisory prior to returning to St. Lucia in 2008 to lead the family owned business. 

Sanovnik helped to engineer a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the Bay Gardens chain using a digital marketing strategy focused on encouraging better yielding direct bookings. This combined with a focus on cost containment while maintaining and even growing employment levels helped to drive the business towards sustained growth, profitability and numerous awards including the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year Award for an unprecedented two years in a row (2014, 2015). 

Sanovnik is currently the Immediate Past President of the St. Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association having previously served as the President of the Association from February 2016 to July 2018. As President of the Association he played a pivotal role in leading many advocacy efforts on a number of important matters including the Sharing Economy, Taxation and Alternative Energy. He played a pivotal role on expanding the Association’s efforts in the fields of Linkages and People Development with the establishment of the award winning Virtual Agricultural Clearing House and the SLHTA Young Leaders Initiative. 

He is a current Director and former Regional Vice President of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA). As a CHTA Director he played a pivotal role in the thought process behind the CHTA’s position paper on the Sharing Economy. With the Alternative Accommodation Sector now accounting for over 15% of St. Lucia’s arrivals and growing, Destang spearheaded the drafting of the SLHTA’s own position paper on this sector to help inform discussions with the government on the creation of a reasonable and balanced regulatory environment for the Alternate Accommodation Sector. 

Sanovnik has also served as a Director on the board of the Saint Lucia Development Bank, a Director and member of the Marketing Committee at the Saint Lucia Tourist Board, Deputy Chairman of the Youth Enterprise Equity Fund and member of the Investment Committee at the National Insurance Corporation Saint Lucia.

Sanovnik is a graduate of the Schulich School of Business at York University where he obtained a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and was awarded the Alan and Esther Hockin Award for graduating with the highest GPA in the faculty. Sanovnik was also the winner of the Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit (CHRIS) Rising Star Award in 2014.