Playa’s Wardinski’s message of love

MIAMI – When Playa Hotels & Resorts Chairman and CEO Bruce Wardinski received the Lifetime Achievement Award at The Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit (CHRIS) and Hotel Opportunities Latin America (HOLA) events in late April, he was introduced with a video about Playa themed “service from the heart.”

When asked about the video during the subsequent interview, Wardinski magically explained the video's theme. “We debated a lot when we created our values, including the word ‘love,’” he said. “We really felt it was important because we’re all human beings, and what I love about this industry is you have great people people, and I think people inherently do love each other in today’s world. Maybe it doesn’t appear that way today, but I think deep down people do. So, we decided to put it in our values as part of our ‘service from the heart’ approach to business. We thought it was a great way of reflecting the values of all of our associates at Playa and how they communicate that to our guests.”

That's a quote worth sharing and perhaps explains why Wardinski was chosen as the first recipient of the awards for both conferences during the same year.

The food and beverage experience, number one, has to be really high level because if you look at guest reviews, that’s what they talk about.

Bruce Wardinski

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Founded in 2006, Playa Hotels & Resorts currently owns and/or manages 24 resorts (9,027 rooms) under the following brands: Hyatt Zilara, Hyatt Ziva, Hilton All-Inclusive, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, Wyndham Alltra, Seadust, Kimpton, Jewel Resorts and The Luxury Collection. Among Wardinski's most significant enhancements to the model: changing the traditional low-price all-inclusive concept by adding more services and amenities, which opened the door to increasing the rate to further drive profitability.

With the all-inclusive space growing in popularity, Wardinski said he is not worried about oversaturation. In fact, he said it will continue to grow and move “upward and outward in many more locations.”

“I think it’s something that translates well over to Asia Pacific. Club Med has it at ski resorts. It’s at high-end safaris and rafting trips,” Wardinski said. “There are amazing, high-end all-inclusives in the U.S. that have been around a long time, but people just don’t know about them or focus on them because they’re also kind of unique and special.”

But one of the limitations developers have with all-inclusive is the right location. Wardinski advised developers must find world-class beach locations and to be near a major airports. “If you meet those two criteria, you have the ability to do some spectacular things,” he said.

What Playa continues to do to drive better results is putting more and more emphasis on food & beverage, way beyond the traditional all-inclusive buffets. “About three years ago we came out with our three pillars, and it was food and beverage, wellness, and entertainment/activities – and every resort has to be unique,” Wardinski said. “The food and beverage experience, number one, has to be really high level because if you look at guest reviews, that’s what they talk about.”

But after a week at an all-inclusive, guests can easily gain 20 pounds and feel horrible. So, Playa is now focused on fitness with what Wardinski calls world-class facilities and amenities not found at traditional hotels.

And with guest demographics skewing younger, activities have been expanded to create unique experiences. Here, Wardinski cited a hidden speakeasy at one Playa property. “We’re trying to excite the guests to make their whole experience unique – so they’ll love it, want to come back and tell other people about it.”

All of these amenities also have the potential to drive non-package revenue and, believe it or not, Wardinski credits COVID with helping here. “Everybody went touchless, which accelerated app adoption where guests could make dinner reservations, rent cabanas and make all sorts of upgrades,” he explained. “So, we’ve continued to improve that experience because with the younger generation, if it’s not on their phone, it doesn’t exist in the world.”