Exclusive: BodyHoliday grows outside St. Lucia

ST. LUCIA – A family business since the 1960s and now led by CEO Andrew Barnard, Sunswept Resorts has years of expertise in destination luxury wellness resorts in St. Lucia with its BodyHoliday property and is now ready to export their experience with plans to grow via greenfield developments, HMAs and/or minority equity positions. It will start with the development of The BodyHoliday Algarve in Portugal, which Barnard said is close to completing financing and expected to break ground in the second half of next year and open in early 2029.

Barnard, a graduate of Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland and The General Managers Program at Cornell University, spoke to Hotel Investment Today exclusively to talk about plans that already include the hiring of an experienced, global team to lead the next phase of growth. He said he’d like to add a hotel or two a year moving forward and is looking in the U.S., the Caribbean, Central America and Europe to capitalize on the ongoing boom in the wellness space. The Global Wellness Institute forecasts wellness revenues will reach $9 trillion by 2028.

Sunswept Resorts CEO Andrew Barnard

Barnard, now with 26 years of experience, is the third generation of the family to lead the business with owned and operated all-inclusives BodyHoliday and Stolentime in St. Lucia sitting under the Sunswept Resort business. He said Sunswept also developed and sold what is now Sugar Beach, a Viceroy hotel, in St. Lucia, and did the same with LaSource in Grenada, which is now a Sandals property.

The next all-inclusive property in the Eastern Algarve is being conceived by architectural firm Gensler and will sit on a beachfront spanning 26 acres with 175 keys, five F&B concepts, a 40,000-square-foot Wellness Center with over 40 treatment rooms, a fitness complex and multiple pools—among them a negative-edge dune pool tucked within the coastal landscape. Other amenities will include a garden, a FIFA-standard soccer field, a racquet center with tennis and padel courts, as well as health and fitness programs positioned as “where holistic rejuvenation meets refined leisure.”

Joining Barnard in the new executive suite tasked with expansion is Chief Operating Officer Indu Brar, who worked across senior level operations at Fairmont. In her most recent role, she was responsible for delivering on the Accor technology strategy leveraging a leadership and operational lens for the North & Central America region. Jean-Charles Denis is the new chief financial officer who spent more than a decade with IHG, playing a role in the growth and strategic management of their portfolio. Kevin Bundy has been named project director and has worked on property developments such as Battersea Power Station and Soho Houses in Europe.

In addition, Jeremy Plummer is the new chairman, acting as a strategic adviser specializing in international real estate. In December 2021, Plummer retired from CBRE Investment Management where he was global chief investment officer.

Non-executive director additions include Alice Avis, MBE, who has extensive experience in consumer, beauty and wellness. She was chief executive of The Sanctuary Spa Group and later served as executive chairman of Lumene Oy, a private equity-backed skincare company. Mia Kyricos has also joined with decades of experience leading and advising wellness-driven brands and hospitality companies. She has served as global head of Wellbeing for Hyatt, chief brand officer for Spafinder and global director of spa brands for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Slow and modest

This pivotal moment for BodyHoliday is being managed carefully by Barnard, a former Ultra-Distance endurance athlete, making sure all the building blocks are in place before they try to scale.

“We have to build slowly and modestly,” he said. “The wellness idea is difficult, and you have to be very careful about how you do it, and the talent you bring in has to be on board. It’s a much more precise project.”

Rendering of the BodyHoliday in the Eastern Algrave of Portugal.

Barnard also pointed out that as a family business, they’ve always run the business more professionally with non-executive chairs advising them with no family member as chairman of the board. “We’ve always tried to hold ourselves accountable to our performance and it’s quite exciting for me to bring in, with the support of the board, some world-class executives who bring a pedigree of international hospitality management. I’m learning an enormous amount from these guys, and I hope that they’re learning a lot from me.”

Barnard describes Sunswept’s approach to hotelkeeping as small, intimate, high service, high touch, with highly ethically driven experiences.

He wants to find like-minded developers and growth mostly through HMAs that are well thought out so they can be responsive and accountable to owners and developers.

“We have this fabulous moment and transition happening, and it’s a really exciting time with the growth of wellness,” he said.

Target markets

Targets for growth are neighboring islands in the Caribbean (Barbados, Antigua, Grenada Costa Rica), the Middle East, U.S. (Montana, Colorado, Arizona) and Central America, according to Barnard. “I’m looking at other areas of Europe, as well, such as Italy, islands in the Mediterranean... We have a lot of active discussions happening and I’ve appointed a head of strategic initiatives and a head of development. They are certainly bringing me a lot of really interesting options.”

We’re not precious about holding equity control. That’s not an objective. The key for us is to bring our knowledge and background in wellness to every project through an HMA.

Andrew Barnard

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Barnard added they also have a couple of discussions ongoing about greenfield sites and hope to get a few HMAs that could include residential components with the BodyHoliday character.

The goal is to reach four or five properties and then try to accelerate growth.

“We’re not precious about holding equity control. That’s not an objective,” he added. “The key for us is to bring our knowledge and background in wellness to every project through an HMA.”

Barnard expanded on his strategy by saying, “We’re rich in knowledge, but we have a small company in St. Lucia. So, we don’t have that financial firepower... We have invested with our heart and money in Portugal, but I think HMAs is the way forward. We’ve been structuring the business to drive the professionalism of Sunswept Resorts way beyond what’s required to manage two resorts in St. Lucia.”

What’s different?

Barnard said, performance at the St. Lucia BodyHoliday has been tracking well with inflation and the all-inclusive ADR currently sits at around $995, adding that he expects a 15% uplift in Portugal. “We are managing to push ADR between 5% and 8% annually,” he said.

Calling his comp set the likes of Miraval and Canyon Ranch, Barnard explained that he differentiates the BodyHoliday offering in an increasingly crowded playing field by having wellness in its DNA – it’s not just a nice amenity or add on to meet market demand.

BodyHoliday St. Lucia

“Those experiences are fundamentally different,” he explained. “It’s like Volvo building a sports car, or Ferrari trying to build a car that’s safe and secure. That’s not us.”

While BodyHoliday has all the spa treatments and healthy dinging options, Barnard also said they have the temptations and indulgences that guests would expect on a fabulous, fun vacation.

“The BodyHoliday approach to life change is one that is about incremental and sustainable choices that we want people to make in their lives,” he said. “We’re not trying to turn your life upside down. A lot of BodyHoliday guests are already invested in wellness... They’re just looking for those values to be enhanced and be inspired to feel even better. And that’s what BodyHoliday does. It doesn’t try to limit you in a clinical setting. It tries to inspire you to live a better life...  We’ve been around for 38 years working out how to maximize the wellness intent of our guests with the ability to get under their skins and inside of their hearts. That’s how you affect change.”

At the end of the day, however, Barnard also admits Sunswept Resorts and BodyHoliday are unknown quantities in the global hotel investment world.

“But I like to think that we punch above our weight... So, as I’ve been bringing on the team, I’ve had access to some interesting people and real heavy hitters. We’re talking honestly from the heart about what we do, why we exist, what our principles are, what our ethics are, and then showing them the results of that. We’re certainly raising some eyebrows and getting some traction.”