Becoming the general manager of Four Seasons Resort Nevis and Four Seasons regional vice president is a homecoming for Yvette Thomas-Henry.
Born on the island of St. Thomas, she grew up in St. Croix and spent two years living in St. Kitts as a child before moving to the U.S. The 52-year-old Thomas-Henry said she never saw herself returning to the Caribbean until she became a regional vice president and began overseeing two of Four Seasons’ Caribbean resorts.
“Then all of a sudden it became so real that coming back was something that felt right, and when this opportunity presented itself, it was just, yes, it’s time to go home,” she says.
Thomas-Henry joined the Four Seasons Resort Nevis on January 2 after finishing a four-year stint as regional vice president and general manager at the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta. She is steeped in luxury, with her first job as a front desk agent at The Plaza in 1987.
Contributed by Debbie Carlson
She took the job to help pay for college, as she was attending Pace University in New York City for speech-language pathology. “I wanted to work somewhere fun,” Thomas-Henry says – and to meet celebrities, which is why she wanted to work the front desk.
Even after graduating and then receiving a masters in administration and human services at Audrey Cohen College, she was still having fun in hospitality. At the time, she gave herself two years to see if she would have opportunities to excel in the industry. She never left.
Thomas-Henry says she is Four Seasons’ only regional vice president who’s a West Indian native, and she sees herself as a role model to her staff.
“It’s showing the team here that it does not matter where you begin. The runways ahead for you are what you create for yourself. There’s nothing better than seeing it. I’m proud to come from this part of the world. And I’m proud of all the hard work that I’ve done that led up to where I’m at in my career,” she says.
Her own role model is her mother. A single mom who had five children before she graduated high school, she earned her GED, then got a college degree and become a teacher.
“I’ve been very fortunate to have that as a backdrop and foundation of how I view myself, how I built my life, how I viewed my career and my progress from there,” Thomas-Henry says.
Her approach to luxury is grounded in the guest experience and hiring employees who are passionate about the job. “There is no substitute for having employees who are engaged, who feel valued and who are given the bandwidth and the runway to be themselves, to create master experiences and to really show off their talent,” she says. (The hotel currently isn’t taking reservations due to the coronavirus, but a representative said that at this point, it plans to open again on June 1.)
People who visit the Caribbean often overlook the culture for the beauty of the region, she says. “They miss out on the richness of the people and the uniqueness of the culture of the incredible men and woman who are so tenacious and so prideful of the culture,” she says.
But customers return because of that level of connection. “Yes, we have beautiful beaches, but there’s nothing like an authentic connection that genuinely makes them feel at home. The employees make that happen,” Thomas-Henry says.
And customers are returning to the Caribbean after the storms of a few years ago: Although St. Kitts and Nevis were relatively undamaged, the Caribbean overall is still rebounding. Data from STR regarding 2019 hotel performance shows occupancy was the lowest in the region since 2011, at 63.7%, but ADR and RevPAR increased.
Thomas-Henry says there is a connection between the resort and the community, so everything they do matters on an island of 12,000 people. “We have to make sure whatever we put in place creates opportunities for the future,” she says.
One of her major goals in her new position is community outreach: She plans to work with some of the homeowners who are part of the Four Seasons Resort Nevis’ residential component.
“I absolutely intend to be part of the fabric of this island, making it more visible… We have some amazing homeowners here who are also willing to give back to this island in a very, very meaningful and critical way,” she says.