Elegant Hotels signs on new St Lucia property

Barbados-focussed upscale freehold hotel and hospitality owner and operator Elegant Hotels Group announced that it signed a marketing and sales services agreement on Thursday, with The Landings Resort and Spa in St Lucia.

The AIM-traded company said the agreement commenced with immediate effect, and would involve Elegant Hotels providing The Landings with a variety of services across the areas of sales, marketing, reservations, revenue management and public relations across all key feeder markets.

It said the value of the contract to the group was expected to be approximately $0.2m per year, and the property would be fully branded as part of the Elegant Hotels portfolio as ‘The Landings Resort and Spa by Elegant Hotels’.

The Landings is situated within 19 acres of tropical landscaped gardens in St Lucia's exclusive Rodney Bay, Elegant’s board explained, and consists of 85 villa suites with ocean, beachfront or marina views.

It said the resort's amenities and services include a 7,000-square-foot spa, a state-of-the-art health club, a private marina, three restaurants and two bars, three swimming pools, two tennis courts, an 800-foot beachfront, and an extensive array of water sports.

The Landings would be Elegant Hotels' second hotel offering outside Barbados, following the signing in November of a management contract with Hodges Bay Resort in Antigua, which was due to open in autumn 2017.

The board of Elegant Hotels said it continued to believe that such arrangements represented a compelling opportunity for the group to expand beyond Barbados, given they require far less capital investment than full ownership.

“We are delighted to have signed this agreement with a luxury property that so clearly reflects our ethos of understated elegance and outstanding customer service,” said CEO Sunil Chatrani.

“As we said at the time of our IPO in May 2015, St Lucia and Antigua are the two Caribbean islands beyond Barbados into which we are particularly keen to expand, and we are therefore very pleased to now have a presence in both.

“We look forward to working with the management team of The Landings in order to combine the high quality of their property with Elegant Hotels' sales and marketing expertise.”