As travel begins to pick back up, luxury, privacy and relaxation are top of mind for many travelers. That makes this year a prime time for Karisma Hotels & Resorts and Margaritaville to debut the new five-star Margaritaville Island Reserve Cap Cana, a luxury all-inclusive property on Juanillo Beach in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, that is scheduled to open in October.
The resort, which will be the second Island Reserve brand property, will feature 228 suites and 40 villas in 13 room categories; 10 food and beverage locations; a 24-hour fitness center; and other amenities.
Here, Rienk de Jong, vice president of sales and marketing at Premier Worldwide Marketing (Karisma’s sales and marketing provider), discusses the upcoming launch of the property and Karisma’s current outlook.
Rienk de Jong, vice president of sales and marketing at Premier Worldwide Marketing
Credit: 2021 Premier Worldwide MarketingWhat will be some of the highlights at Margaritaville Island Reserve Cap Cana?
First and foremost, Cap Cana is a luxury destination with an amazing beach. Karisma focuses on top-quality food and beverages, and I think we elevated it to a new level with the Gourmet Village. We have restaurants, bars and lounges all in one square, so it’s an experience like going into town; the village feels like a destination in itself. A lot of the entertainment is focused on live music to create a tropical, relaxing vibe. We developed a really exciting nightlife experience on the property.
Aside from that, the property has 40 private villas, with either a private pool or [access to] the exclusive lagoon-style pool — that’s almost a small resort-within-a-resort. It’s really an ultra-luxury vacation. And over the past year especially, we’ve seen privacy become more key to the vacation experience. So, I think demand will be high for those villas.
We’re also very happy that we can deliver a new property for our travel agent partners in the market, because if anybody has had a tough year, it’s been travel agents.
What has it been like launching a new property during the COVID-19 pandemic?
This is the second Island Reserve property we launched — the first was last March [in Riviera Maya, Mexico], which was not a particularly comfortable time to launch a new product. But the Margaritaville Island Reserve concept and brand is about escapism and having fun. And I think the consumer is looking to escape from what’s happened over the past year. We’ve seen demand moving upward [for this year] and for Q1 of next year.
The resort will offer 10 food and beverage options.
Credit: 2021 Karisma Hotels & ResortsWe’re also very happy that we can deliver a new property for our travel agent partners in the market, because if anybody has had a tough year, it’s been travel agents. We’re a strong believer in the travel agent community, so we’re very excited to offer our partners a new product to help them get on their feet — and we pay up to 21% commission.
What is Karisma’s overall vision for 2021-2022?
Our vision now is to work together with all our partners to recover from the past year, and to enable our guests to get back to the properties safely through Karisma Peace of Mind, which is a program we set up to ensure the hygiene standards in all our hotels. We see a lot of pent-up demand from all markets. It’s most important that we provide an amazing vacation experience for our guests, because many haven’t been able to travel. So, traveler expectations will be higher, and we need to make sure that we fulfill — and exceed — those expectations.
Do you expect the luxury market to help lead the travel industry’s recovery?
Yes, we do. In the past year, even when there were many travel restrictions, we saw luxury products do relatively well, along with the higher-end categories within those properties. We’ve also seen an extension in the length of stay at most of our hotels, which has to do with the luxury product. People are willing to spend a little more to stay a bit longer.
I think for so long we’ve been taking travel for granted, and now we’ve seen that we can’t. We have to create a balance in life, and travel is a big part of that.
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