Skylark Negril Beach Resort

On a section of the Negril beachfront that balances proximity to the resort strip’s social energy with a degree of separation from its most intensive infrastructure, Skylark Negril Beach Resort occupies a position on Jamaica’s celebrated Seven Mile Beach whose relative restraint in development density gives it a quality of beach access and marine environment that the more intensively built sections of the strip have compromised. The resort draws on the Jamaican beach holiday tradition — the rum punch at sunset, the reggae soundtrack, the warmth of the Jamaican hospitality culture that distinguishes the island’s service from the more transactional Caribbean resort experience — while providing a level of contemporary comfort and culinary quality appropriate to guests for whom the authenticity of the Jamaica experience and the quality of the accommodation are not competing priorities but complementary requirements.

The food programme draws on the extraordinary depth of Jamaican culinary tradition — the jerk chicken and pork of the roadside cook-shops, the escovitch fish of the coastal villages, the festival bread and the bammy cassava flatbread that accompany the island’s most characteristic dishes — applied with the quality of a resort kitchen that sources directly from local farmers and fishermen rather than from the imported supply chains that dominate the larger all-inclusive resorts. Watersports on the calm Caribbean waters of the Negril beach, snorkelling on the reef that runs parallel to the coast, and the social life of Negril’s distinctively Jamaican nighttime culture provide the experiential framework for a stay. The Rick’s Café cliff diving tradition, the Negril Marine Park’s conservation area, and the Rastafarian cultural community of the surrounding hills give Negril a cultural dimension beyond its beach celebrity.

Skylark Negril’s relationship with the local community is expressed through its employment practices, its support for local suppliers, and its engagement with the Negril Environmental Protection Trust’s conservation work on the Seven Mile Beach and in the surrounding wetland habitats whose health is essential to the quality of the coast that makes the resort viable.