“Make people love your
hotel so much they want to live there.”

That’s not just a marketing mantra. Though, it’s a pretty good one. Making people love our properties so much they want to live there also happens to be our job.

Our properties in San Pedro are hotels and resorts with real estate. Make no mistake, our first job is to get vacationers to visit the property. But our second job? Turn those vacationers into homeowners.

So what does that mean? Our on-property experience needs to deliver. It doesn’t just have to be good… it has got to be so good that guests want to make this place a permanent part of their lives. If the experience isn’t great, no clever marketing gimmick in the world is going to convince vacationers to invest.

This can sound like a tall order, but I can’t think of a higher standard to set for the on-property experience. What greater success can there be?

A lot of hotels are looking for ways to streamline or otherwise “limit” guest engagement through technology. We take the opposite approach. We want to be hands-on. We want to create more opportunities to assist because it’s the personal touch that creates the experience.

So, once we’ve captured a guest through marketing tactics, which we can all agree are impersonal by nature, we can then start to prioritize engaging with them. Now, it’s about helping that guest plan their stay, plan their off-property activities, and offer local insights.

And I’m happy to report that we see this approach validated time and again as we see guests return and real estate purchased. Creating a connection to people and places is the difference between a stay and a memory.

I also can’t help but feel that more properties, even without real estate goals, can look to this unique paradigm and learn something: Make the product great. Make the guest experience memorable. Make connections with your guests.

It sounds simple enough, but it requires a truly dedicated effort.