Demolition Progress And Renovation Progress. Reports, Pics And Videos

Had a meeting this morning with one of the Directors, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss some marketing ideas and a general catch up. There's a few snippets below of interest.

The bad news I referred to isn't the end of the World, but the hotel have taken a marketing decision that they don't want any more photos of the ongoing construction being taken and publicised. Staff have been prohibited from taking and circulating photos and in the interest of good relations I will also go along with this myself. If photos do arise here, as they surely will, I wont be censoring them but I wont be proactive in obtaining them myself.

The reasoning is they don't want to lose the 'wow' factor. Watching the hotel take shape piece by piece, floor by floor means that the finished product is of little surprise and they want it to be breathtaking when finally revealed. You could liken it to peeking under the wrapping paper of Christmas presents.

I specifically asked about Margaritas (old Nice Shoes bar) since it hadn't been demolished, it is staying and will remain a restaurant.

Construction is on schedule and bookings for the re-opening are above expectations, despite the fact that 3/4 of their outlets (travel agents etc) have not been given pricing yet. Indeed, many of the larger travel agents wont sell until they have conducted site visits after the hotel is open so any obscure prices that you see (an example being the recent post about Travelocity selling a week in Sept 2017 for $4100, i.e. almost $600 a night) should be taken with a pinch of salt. I've agreed to send examples of these, as I mentioned they are scaring people off. If anyone sees any examples of ridiculously high pricing for 2017 please post a screenshot.

Prices for the soft opening are not a good guide to future pricing and 2018 prices, as per the hotel website are a realistic picture of how things are planned to be longer term (no real surprises there). There are lots of seasonal fluctuations and prices generally increase the closer to departure date you book, but once you shake all these prices up and average them out their plan is for 2018 prices to be 50% higher than 2016. So a $250 room will go for around $375 per night. The best prices will be found from 3 - 6 months before departure date and there will be various promos and discounts etc.

Desire has had a new "skin" i.e. a new logo and colors etc that are reflected both online and at the hotel. There is no change in concept.

 

Nope, no delay

We only discussed the Boobs Cruise briefly. It's more of a business relationship with Albatros than the hotel. The only involvement of the hotel is kindly providing us a convenient place for check in. Obviously there wont be a Paty O's anymore so we will need to agree a new check in location closer the time, but I don't see it as being a problem.