Elegant Resorts to focus on beach and villas in 'back to basics' approach

Elegant Resorts is going “back to basics” this year and will focus on the beach product it is “renowned for”.

The luxury operator had introduced more tailormade product in recent years but said focussing on beach breaks would be crucial for recovering post-pandemic. 

Managing director Lisa Fitzell said the operator had also placed a lot of attention on expanding its villa offering in Europe and the Caribbean due to increased demand. 

When asked what the brand would focus on in the current climate, Fitzell said: “It’s all about going back to basic. It’s all about reigniting and getting our customers travelling again. 

“That’s got to start with the safest destinations and where people want to go, and we believe that is predominately beach.

“We absolutely want to grow tailormade and we will – we’ve got some fantastic products and we will sell more but realistically, we’re not going to see Asia, Australia or the US start to come back for a number of months, so it’s not part of our key strategy for this year. 

“We need to get as much easy business as we can, and really have all of our ducks in a row so that we’re ready for the peak, because there will be a peak that happens when we’re over this last hurdle. We’re hoping that will be April time.”

Fitzell said she was confident clients would spend more on travel this year.

She said, in 2020 – a year when the operator only achieved 40% of 2019’s total travel revenue, the average spend was up by 35% year on year.

“We’re definitely expecting clients to spend more. Last year average spend was up by 35% on 2019 and that’s continuing from what we’re seeing. There are really big bookings coming through. People in our market have much more disposable cash and they’re happy putting more spend into the holidays because they’ve missed out. I would say the majority of our clients are probably going to do less travelling but the trips they do will be bigger.”

She said there was greater confidence among clients for travel in September and beyond, with around 70% of bookings being for quarter three and four. 

She added: “All of last year was a very late market, so we’re expecting that to be the case [again] as soon as we can travel again. In December we had people booking and travelling the next day in December, so we’re very aware that we need to remain ahead of the game.”

 

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