Riu Hotels & Resorts’ partnership with Sunwing Vacations gives clients plenty of options for winter escapes
Riu Hotels & Resorts clearly can look forward to hosting large numbers of Sunwing Vacations clients this winter, with a senior RIU official stating that the “extremely important” tour operator is playing a pivotal role when it comes to helping fill its resorts.
The two companies have long had a close relationship, with Armin Kaestner, RIU’s vice president of sales, contracting & business development, telling a Toronto audience recently that the tour operator fills “5,000-plus rooms every day” at RIU properties in this hemisphere during the January-March period.
Indeed, Sunwing Vacations is “our No. 1 partner” in this part of the world, said Kaestner, in Toronto for the Sunwing Vacations Group’s annual employee leadership event, Amplify.
The Spanish hotel firm now has 99 properties worldwide, some of them city hotels while others are all-inclusive beach resorts. Thirty-nine of the properties are found in this hemisphere and account for more than half of RIU’s revenue, underscoring the importance of the region to the hotel company, Kaestner said.
Kaestner said that RIU’s all-inclusive resorts amount to “real all-inclusives,” stating that guests won’t have to reach for their wallets during their stays.
“There’s no way (you’re going) to pay for anything,” he promised. “We’re talking about real all-inclusives here.”
Kaestner said the likes of pools, restaurants and waterparks are commonplace in resorts in the Caribbean and Latin American, with RIU being distinguished from its competitors by what he said was a particularly high level of service.
He also said RIU always chooses “prime locations” for its properties, adding it would rather not build a hotel or resort than “build it in the wrong place.”
Kaestner, who noted that RIU dates back to 1953, labelled the company a major success story. Its properties enjoy year-round occupancy levels of around 90%. That figure helps explain why the company is fourth among Spanish hotel chains in terms of room numbers but first in terms of revenue, he continued.
RIU is continuing to broaden its presence in the Western Hemisphere, recently having opened a downtown Chicago hotel. A downtown Toronto hotel is slated to open next year.
Jamaica’s Riu Negril will undergo a refurbishment that will see it close in October and reopen in early December with what the hotel company says will be a “new look and feel.”
Last month saw the reopening of the Riu Palace Bavaro in Punta Cana after what RIU says was a massive refurbishment.
The company actually demolished a neighbouring hotel to help enlarge the Riu Palace Bavaro, which now has 994 rooms and 32 food and beverage outlets.
Some 108 rooms are allocated to Elite Club customers, who will stay in what RIU says are “privileged locations with the best possible views.” Sixty of them have a private pool. Elite Club customers also have a swimming pool exclusively for them and their own bar, a priority check-in area and a lounge bar.
RIU now has 4,528 rooms in five Punta Cana properties.
—IAN STALKER
