Jamaica’s construction and hotel sector is in mourning with the passing of Peter Rousseau, who has distinguished himself in both endeavours.

Rousseau, a past President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association died at home in St. Andrew Wednesday afternoon having been ailing for some time. His passing comes four years after that of his brother, Pat, an attorney who served as president of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control.

Rousseau was one of Jamaica’s leading businessmen, never short of ideas or action, a man who is willing to take risks and to cut new paths. By the time he was 30 in 1968, Peter started his own housing development company. 

He soon after spread his wings into other companies, merging and strengthening family businesses with his brother Pat. By the late seventies, Peter was looking for broader horizons. 

With hundreds of housing constructions and several large office complex developments behind him, he crossed the Caribbean to Trinidad and Tobago, and between 1977 and 1981 his company planned or developed a wide range of projects from housing estates at Point Lisas.

This was done through the Neal & Massy Group’s headquarters to Tracmac in Chaguanas. Rousseau distinguished in tourism when he developed Ciboney Resort in Ocho Rios, the much-praised resort which he made into one of the Caribbean’s leading hotel properties. Ciboney was bought by Sandals hotel chain in 2004, as part of a deal with the government financial sector bail out company, FINSAC.