Vista Encantada, a top notch experience for families

Surrounded by the Pacific and with unparalleled views, the suites at Vista Encantada provide an exclusive and tranquil retreat for its guests in Los Cabos. Luxury surrounds everything: category rooms, a first class Spa and a gourmet gastronomic offer. The proposal of this place is to provide a memorable experience that feels like being at home, even away from home. We spoke with Gabriel Ibarra Macías, Sales & Marketing Director and this is what he told us.

Each property has its history. What was the origin of Vista Encantada?
The essence of our group, which is México Gran Hotel, stems from the Mexican concept of luxury and can be seen in each of our properties. They are owned and operated hotels and born in Mexico from a Mexican family. Vista Encantada continues with that essence, but this time adding more modern touches. there is a very interesting fusion between the traditional luxury Mexican hacienda with modern concepts and touches.

What do you do to promote Vista Encantada in a destination that, apart from being varied, is very competitive?
From the outset, our primary market is the US, due to the same geographical location of the destination of Los Cabos, let's say that it is a natural market. Within this market, the western US area predominates. However, we are making a strong effort to penetrate this market. Today in the east they are very used to traveling to Cancun because of its proximity, however, the market is looking for new options and Los Cabos is one of them. We really do a lot of promotional work in the US, meetings with the press, visits to travel agents and wholesalers to promote the properties.

A great advantage of Vista Encantada and other properties is that foreigners love this Mexican concept, if they travel to Mexico they want to experience this, and they are design hotels that are also in service. Once you enter the property you feel at home again: the rooms, the service, the quality of the people in general. Having a Mexican concept of luxury makes it much easier for us to be able to promote it, and our primary market likes it, they can be satisfied with the stay

You say that the west side is more natural than the east corridor. Within the east is there a particular destination?
Yes, New York, New Jersey. It is a market that is growing and this clearly involves connectivity, if connectivity does not exist, it is complicated. In the New York and New Jersey area, connectivity is growing and that helps a lot. Here in the Florida area there is connectivity, but with scales. At the destination level, they are working hard to improve connections with these new markets that we are covering. The eastern market reaches us, but on a smaller scale.

How could you define the target customer?
We are 100 percent family properties. We are looking for a more familiar guest profile, not with children, but adolescents and adults. Obviously, in Los Cabos family times are very marked: they come to us at Christmas, New Year and summer. The rest are couples, groups of friends, adults, etc. Our properties in general have a larger capacity and that attracts more groups of friends, families and even couples because of the location with views for romance.

How do you define the Spa and the gastronomic offer they have? what are the points of differentiation?
We have a hostel inside the Spa, a vault alluding to contemporary haciendas, lined with brick and with a stunning view of the sea that makes the difference compared to the competition. Within this Spa, which was conceived as a result of flowers from the region, the essence of each flower is perceived and noted in each treatment. We have, for example, the cempasuchil cabin, special and very traditional treatments.

Regarding gastronomy, the group was born as a gastronomic enterprise, the owners are restaurateurs by birth, founding partners of several restaurants nationwide such as Carlos O'Brian's in Puerto Vallarta, Squid Roe and Señor Frogs nationally and in the US. This is how they arrived in Los Cabos. This gastronomic part is still very important, we have more than 18 restaurant concepts in all the hotels and a very strong gastronomic area along the Marina walkway. We have three top specialty restaurants, one in Vista Encantada: Mestizo del Mar and another, Los Riscos, in the neighboring hotel Hacienda Encantada. Gastronomy is definitely fundamental and one of our strengths.

You opened just before the pandemic. How did you experience such a drastic process for everyone? what teaching did he leave them?
Many teachings. Vista Encantada opened in 2019 and closed in February 2020, it did not have its maturity period like other hotels. We have just come out of all this and that is why we are doing more promotional work with this new property.

It was very hard for everyone, we closed the hotels for three months. We had a property that remained in operation, Marina Fiesta, which helped with the recovery. In the labor part, it was tried to maintain the sources of work with many difficulties and thanks to God things were taking place, we were one of the first destinations that were reactivated in Mexico.

It left us many lessons, such as that overnight everything can change and you have to be resilient to any change and act quickly at an operational and structural level. Changes had to be made to be able to adapt, implement strategies to continue operating and manage to monopolize as much as we could within the market. From the beginning we had a lot of empathy and communication with our clients and guests.

At the destination level there was a lot of unity and that helped. There were many regulations that were implemented in all the properties and I think that as a destination we did a good job and that generated confidence in the natural market to come. It also benefited us that many US and European markets closed and the safe and accessible destination to travel became Mexico.

How can you describe the current demand and what is your forecast for the future?
A boom came to us at the destination level and at the Mexico level due to the restriction of other markets. For us, 2021 and 2022 have been historic years in terms of occupancy numbers. In 2023, markets around the world begin to open up and obviously people will begin to travel and explore other destinations. So since 2021 we have been working on the guest so that he speaks well of the destination and generates that rhythm that allows us to reach the average and establish a base for 2023. Above all, from April onwards, because our winter, from November to March has always been very strong, from April the challenge begins.

The groups are already starting to reactivate and although we are not so "group" we have a portion of wedding groups and we are covering leisure groups. We begin to make a strategy from now on with promotions, offers with advance reservations and others to be able to reach that base and continue working. There is a lot of promotional work, word of mouth, the press and digital.

If you had to give a current overview of Los Cabos as a destination, what would you say about its situation?
It is at its best, it is a destination that is growing. I would say we are still in diapers. We have three markets, the US, Canada and Mexico and we are opening up to the European market, in that sense it recently opened a direct flight to Spain through Ibero Jet and before the pandemic it opened one to London that closed due to COVID and is about to be reactivated. That diversification is what is interesting for this destination apart from Latam. We have been working there for some time in Central and South America, in Brazil and Colombia, looking for connectivity via Panama through Copa Airlines. Achieving that connectivity would open up a very strong market. It is a destination at its peak, which still has a lot to grow.