For those newer to the area, life in Punta del Este can be defined as BC and AC, i.e., before and after the opening of the Conrad hotel.
The Conrad hotel started out by raising the bar for hotel accomodation by becoming the one and only truly five star offering in terms of both facilities and services when it opened 11 years ago. For example, in terms of facilities, its spa, which now seems old and small, was the best available for a few years --well, the only one. The convention facilities continue to be the only decent ones.
Service-wise, the hotel had to create a virtual "hospitality school" in the area by training thousands of staff by now (at present it has a staff of 1,400), who have gone on to benefit other establishments. By offering a heated hotel room in the winter, it helped establish the trend of winter visit by homeowners who would not set foot in their sometimes very large and un-winterized homes, but enjoy the comfort of the hotel while they visited, rested or tended to home-related business, renovations, etc.
To make the winters less dreary, the hotel brought to Punta del Este entertainment in the form of music concerts, talks, sports tournaments, book signings and every conceivable event. True, many of the stars are on the "has been side," probably with the exception of the hot latin entertainers such as Shakira, Luis Miguel or Enrique (and his dad) Iglesias. But, old or not, who could have objected to seeing James Brown, still in all his glory, just months before dying.
In doing all of the above, the Conrad planted the seeds for the considerable expansion we have seen in hotel tourism in Punta del Este in the last five years. It forced the rest of the market to upgrade, it created a market, allowing for the birth of new boutique hotels such as AWA and Serena, and it did what no government or business group has done to make Punta del Este popular among Brazilians.
But since a few years ago, the Conrad Hotel is no longer alone in the 5-star casino hotel segment, following the arrival of the Cipriani hotel, which in what seemed like minutes after opened became the Mantra Hotel. Mantra did for La Barra area in a smaller scale what the Conrad did for all of Punta del Este. It provided a state-of-the art spa and health-club and the only movie-theater east of Punta del Este, that is, a lifeline for people living in the area year-round.
But although the Mantra was newer, more current and hipper than the "wedding-cake-looking, Vegas-cheesy-style Conrad," for a few years the Mantra felt like a remote and distant enclave that didn´t quite manage to engage a broad public.
Not anymore.
For starters, every other day there´s an announcement of a new upper management post being filled by a Brazilian. Smart, as the main origin for hotel tourism in Punta del Este is Brazil, which also comprises a huge chunk of all casino customers. But interestingly, they managed to enter into a joint venture with the government to operate the Casino Nogaró (the one at the beginning of Gorlero), which undoubtedly will make Mantra more attractive to its gambling clientele, on the one hand, while improving the pathetic Nogaró facilities, which have been languishing in state hands forever. Conrad is not pleased, needless to say.
But, and here´s where we come to what´s in it for us, Mantra people have also undertaken a noticeable effort to engage the non-hotel guest population by scheduling a lineup of events that manage to draw crowds to its relatively "out of the way" location.
A couple of weeks ago it was the wine festival, about which people are still talking. Well, about the food served. It seems like everyone in Punta del Este (winter holidays in Argentina, so it was crowded) was in attendance. Right now they are holding a fondue festival.
I´m sure that as Mantra heats up the competition, Conrad will rise up to the occasion and respond with more or better or alternative something. That´s where we all benefit :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment