Starwood Hotels Adds Luxury To Paradise

Starwood Hotels Adds Luxury To Paradise

By Judy Jacobs

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has signed a contract to manage Maui's Kapalua Bay Hotel, which on Feb. 1 became the latest Starwood Luxury Collection hotel in Hawaii. Starwood, which took over management of the Lodge at Koele and Manele Bay Hotel on Lanai late last year, now has Luxury Collection hotels on each of the state's five major islands.

"The Kapalua Bay Hotel will be marketed as a Luxury Collection hotel on a local, national and international level," said John Votsis, Starwood's regional director of sales and marketing for Hawaii.

"The hotel's recent $20 million renovation, together with The Luxury Collection sales and marketing programs, will help us reposition the hotel as one of Hawaii's very best experiences," said Keith Vieira, Starwood's vice president and director of operations for Hawaii.

It also will be marketed to the meetings and incentives industry. "We have sales offices all over the world dedicated to selling meetings," Votsis said. Some of these meetings will be funneled into one of Starwood's Luxury Collection properties in Hawaii, possibly through a marketing strategy it calls Team Hot.

"When a group meets at a Starwood hotel, the salesperson who handles the meeting asks the client where they're planning to go next. The salesperson then directs the group to one of Starwood's other 2,500 worldwide salespeople. In Maui, for example, we have four hotels, and depending on the meeting planner's needs, our sales manager in, say Chicago, can determine which hotel is right for them," Votsi added.

Starwood's Luxury Collection hotels in Hawaii are particularly suited for the incentives market.

"The Royal Hawaiian and Orchid at Mauna Lani are more than 500 rooms and very upscale, while the others are intimate and thus tailored to the incentive and meetings market. On Lanai, the Manele Bay has a conference center. They've taken a small, intimate island and made it a place to do business and still get out for a game of golf," he said.