‘Hey, I’ll buy you a drink.” That still seems to be a mainstay joke—and a timeless source of staff amusement—at all-inclusive beach resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Ginny Davito, vice president, group and incentive sales at Palace Resorts, which operates all-inclusive resorts in Mexico, mentions it. It is one thing that hasn’t changed.
Almost everything else has. No longer synonymous with bargain vacations, an all-inclusive resort in today’s world can easily mean a five-star property offering everything from premium liquor brands to suites with butler service.
“The perception is changing, but the old image—the idea that all-inclusives are cheap—is still out there. For a meeting planner who has never decided on an all-inclusive before, it can be a challenge,” Davito says.
She recalls one financial services industry planner with a group staying at one of the company’s eight upscale all-inclusive resorts with meeting facilities. The planner told her she had been scared, that “she took a leap of faith” in making an all-inclusive booking for the first time, but that the experience far exceeded her expectations.
The peak for this new breed of all-inclusives came several years ago when such chains as Palace, Sandals, Sol Melia, and Riu moved into top gear, opening new all-inclusives and converting and remodeling acquired properties.
While all-inclusive product continues to increase, a recent report on the Caribbean hotel market by PKF Hospitality Research states there has been a shift away from all-inclusive hotel development to luxury resorts that include a residential component in the form of condominiums, condominium hotels and fractionals.
For one group price, all-inclusive resorts usually include rooms, food, drinks, scheduled entertainment, transfers, taxes, gratuities, and such activities as non-motorized water sports. Some include premium brands of liquor, pool-based scuba and golf green fees.
“All-inclusive resorts have many positives,” says Gary Schirmacher, CMP, senior vice president, Western region for Experient, a meeting planning firm based in Twinsburg, Ohio. “All-inclusive packages are definitely easy on the planning side. A planner can closely manage the expense budget, and attendees have multiple choices for meals.”
He adds that many new high-end products have been getting very good ratings, and that air and lodging can be found at very competitive prices because there is more to choose from.
Susan Adams, associate director of travel program management at New Brunswick, N.J.-based Dittman Incentive Marketing, says incentive programs held at all-inclusives can be very successful.
“Rates are pretty good. They can be quite competitive with cruises, especially with a client that is rate conscious,” she says. “It all depends on the property. Some all-inclusives might charge a surcharge for theme parties or extra setup. With some you take a cost hit if you go off-property; others will give a food credit.”
Not all planners are convinced that all-inclusives are a good choice. Kathi Winter, president of Global Incentives in Huntington Beach, Calif., has so far not recommended all-inclusives to her clients.
“I have mixed feelings,” she says. “They are good for people who want quantity and are price sensitive, but they wouldn’t be my choice.”
She relates how last year a client, a food group intent on a fine dining experience, stayed at a Los Cabos all-inclusive of its own choice and was disappointed. It wasn’t up to the standard they expected.
While Annette Gregg, CMP, vice president, sales and marketing for Carlsbad, Calif.-based Concepts Worldwide, thinks that all-inclusives are a good deal financially, she also notes that they can pose a problem for some clients, particularly pharmaceutical companies, concerned about the perception that such properties are too frivolous for a serious meeting.
“I have one client that won’t go to a place that has ‘resort’ in the name,” she says.
No matter what the perception of all-inclusives resorts may be, the reality is that they are getting more upscale all the time.
This year AAA awarded Five Diamonds to two all-inclusive properties in Mexico for the first time. One was Occidental Hotels & Resorts’ adults-only Royal Hideaway Playacar in the Riviera Maya; the other, the Grand Velas All Suites & Spa Resort in Banderas Bay, Nuevo Vallarta.
Grand Velas, a 4-year-old, family-oriented member of Leading Hotels of the World, almost doubled its room count with a tower expansion completed in late 2005.
The resort features 267 suites, each offering 1,000 square feet or more. There is also a 16,500-square-foot spa that can offer 200 treatments a day, a la carte dining in five restaurants and 8,400 square feet of meeting space.
Suarez Katainen, the resort’s sales director, says group business mostly consists of incentive programs from North America.
“Groups are always trying to improve the previous year’s experience and private events, so we offer creative customized theme nights that are memorable,” she says.
She adds that corporate meetings are a growing market because companies “are learning more and more about the value of the luxury all-inclusive concept and benefits, such as no additional rental costs for meeting facilities.”
SuperClubs, which is celebrating 30 years in the Caribbean this year, offers several meetings-friendly properties. They include the luxury 210-suite Grand Lido Negril and 230-room Grand Lido Braco in Jamaica, and six Breezes resorts in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil.
“We get all types of groups—large incentives, corporate meetings, lots of weddings, 10 rooms to full resort buyouts,” says Don Hartfelder, SuperClubs’ Dallas-based senior sales manager for meetings and incentives.
“All inclusives can really pay off,” he adds. “Everything is included—multiple restaurants, premium liquor. It could mean scuba lessons and golf green fees. The Grand Lidos include dry cleaning and laundry services, and a pedicure and manicure for each guest. “For meetings, AV equipment and LCDs are included. The only extra costs would be for setup or a special function menu.”
He gives the example of the 400-room Breezes Bahamas, which has four restaurants, four bars and five separate meeting rooms, the largest seating 500. It draws strong group business from the northeastern U.S., he says.
Jamaica’s 264-room Breezes Runaway Bay reopened in January following a six-month, $20 million renovation that included the addition of a new 30-room wing, several restaurants, a spa, and two swimming pools.
Sandals will open an expansion at Sandals Grande Antigua later this year. The resort’s new Mediterranean Village will feature 180 suites. Four additional restaurants will bring the resort’s restaurant total to nine, and the spa will be doubled in size.
Palace Resorts has four meetings properties in Cancun, three in the Riviera Maya and one at Nuevo Vallarta. In Cancun, the 2,100-room Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort provides 150,000 square feet of meeting space and a Jack Nicklaus-designed, 27-hole golf course.
Guests get accommodations with double Jacuzzis, 24-hour room service, entertainment, and non-motorized water sports.
Palace Resorts’ Davito says the Palace properties attract a lot of incentive and corporate meetings business.
“We’re also starting to get association and continuing education groups because of the tax advantages of an all-inclusive price,” she says. “For the meeting planner, there are lots of advantages. Groups are not being nickled and dimed. They know the cost. Banquets, cocktail parties, coffee breaks, wireless Internet, top-shelf alcohol, minibars, and even toothpaste and razors are included.
“We don’t charge extra for setup for functions and banquets and awards dinners,” she adds. “We are the only ones I know of who have that policy. Only when outside vendors are involved are there extra charges.”
The Mexico-based company is expanding its all-inclusive inventory.
Late this year and next year, it will unveil in phases the 1,743-room Moon Palace Casino, Golf & Spa Resort, its first Dominican Republic property. The Punta Cana property will feature a casino, eight restaurants and more than 60,000 square feet of divisible, unobstructed meeting space that can accommodate groups of up to 2,560.
Three Palace properties that suffered damage from 2005’s Hurricane Wilma were closed afterward but have since reopened.
Grand reopenings following renovations were held earlier this year for the 601-room Cancun Palace, expanded with 17,000 square feet of new meeting space, and the 252-room Sun Palace, which includes a 3,400-square-foot ballroom and is now a couples-only resort. The 287-room, Beach Palace, which also has 17,000 square feet of meeting space, was rebuilt and opened last June.
Palace has been acquiring properties, renovating and remodeling them, and converting them to its all-inclusive brands.
Last summer, the company purchased the 300-room Club Maeva Tulum in the Riviera Maya. Now called Club Tulum, it is scheduled to close in August and will be renovated and integrated into the Palace brand.
Last year, Palace also unveiled the Le Blanc Spa Resort, formerly the Sierra Cancun, with 8,000 square feet of meeting space, the first of a new luxury brand, as well as the Playacar Palace Riviera Maya, formerly the Hotel Continental, with 4,600 square feet of meeting space.
In 2005, the company opened Vallarta Palace, formerly the Hotel Sierra, which has a 6,300-square-foot ballroom and is Palace’s first resort on Mexico’s Pacific Coast.
Spain-based Barcelo Hotels & Resorts has 129 hotels in 14 countries, including more than 30 all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico, almost all with meeting space.
Over the last year it has expanded with regional North America meetings and incentives sales staff.
“Barcelo was one of the first hotel companies to combine the all-inclusive experience with a professional conference environment. But until now we have not aggressively marketed our meeting services in the U.S. With our recent expansion we see tremendous growth opportunity in the U.S. market,” says Barcelo spokesperson Gayle MacIntyre.
Early last year, the company unveiled a new conference facility with 23,000 square feet of space at Barcelo Maya Beach Resort in Cancun, and a third hotel and a fourth hotel (Maya Tropical Beach and Colonial Beach), bringing its number of guest rooms to 2,000. A fifth all-suite hotel will open next year.
The Spanish chain Sol Melia Hotels & Resorts has five properties with its upscale all-inclusive Paradisus brand in Latin America and the Caribbean, plus some Melia-brand all-inclusives, all with meeting space.
There are two Paradisus properties in Punta Cana, and one each in Costa Rica, Cancun and Puerto Rico.
The newest is the $120 million beachfront Paradisus Palma Real in Punta Cana, which held its grand opening in April last year. It features 554 suites, an 8,600-square-foot spa and health club, four meeting rooms totaling 12,447 square feet, and a 12,876-square-foot ballroom.
Spain-based Riu Hotels & Resorts has more than 100 hotels worldwide, more than half all-inclusive.
Last November it opened the all-inclusive, beachfront Riu Vallarta, which includes 550 guest rooms and two conference rooms and is within walking distance of Riu’s other Puerto Vallarta property, the Riu Jalisco.
That same month, it broke ground on the 902-room, all-inclusive Riu Santa Fe in Cabo San Lucas. Scheduled to open this November, the $135 million beachfront resort will feature three conference rooms. It will be the company’s second Los Cabos resort—it is close to the Riu Palace Cabo San Lucas—and its 13th in Mexico.
The company also opened two other all-inclusives last year: the Riu Palace Punta Cana in May and the Riu Palace Riviera in February.
Currently, its largest resort is the all-inclusive, 856-room ClubHotel Riu Ocho Rios, which opened in October 2005 and has meeting facilities for 100 people.
In July, it will reopen the Riu Palace in Aruba, following a property-wide renovation. Currently under construction is the Riu Montego Bay, opening in Jamaica next year.
