Hotels of different brands working as a team all benefit, according to Dennis Clark, general manager of the 401-room Fairmont Mayakoba on the Riviera Maya in Mexico.
Mayakoba is a billion-dollar project on 1,605 acres on the Mexico’s Atlantic coast developed by Madrid-based Obrascon Huarte Lain (OHL), whose many international arms include maintaining and managing Mexican toll roads. The complex currently has three highly successful hotels, Banyan Tree Mayakoba, Fairmont Mayakoba and Rosewood Mayakoba, and an Andaz Mayakoba opens third quarter of 2016.
“Each hotel is run separately but we support each other whenever necessary,” said Clark. “My Rosewood Mayakoba colleague, Daniel Scott, appeared without being asked to help when a Sunday 10 p.m. power outage, of course during a group buyout, caused a temporary upset at the Fairmont,” he added.
There are informal GMs’ breakfasts once a month, hosted by Mayakoba’s senior vice president of operations. Last week, in fact, the three properties worked together to host the annual ILTM Americas. Over 600 industry leaders from 88 destinations, mostly Americas, were put up for four nights (rooms allocated by the organizer, ILTM Exhibitions).
Working to a mutually-agreed schedule to avoid overlap, all hotels threw big evening parties. Fairmont, which accommodated day-time business in its conference center, had nine different lunch venues, including in the spa and on the electric lancha boats that silently ply the waterways between the hotels.
Mayakoba has maximized use of natural mangrove-lined creeks. The hotels are connected not only by water but by scenic roads, where shuttles constantly run. As if in a condo situation, each property pays maintenance to cover land and ground transport. There is a gentlemen’s agreement not to poach staff. In fact, Clark’s 700-strong team, 90% of whom are local, is happy to stay put: turnover is 21% compared to the Riviera Maya norm of 34%.
“All hotels’ guests have maximum flexibility,” Clark said. “There is cross-signing in all hotels’ restaurants, and in our spas. Guests can also play Mayakoba’s Greg Norman championship course – as long as the timing does not conflict with the annual OHL PGA championship, this year November 12-15.”
Mayakoba has also just opened an authentic Mexican village, El Pueblito, with cobble-stoned square, an art gallery, restaurants run by each hotel, and a consecrated church, ideal for weddings, with mass every Sunday at noon.
As a boy back in Boston, Clark had harbored ambitions of becoming an astronomer, but a spare-time job dishwashing led some years later to joining Horst Schulze and Hervé Humler at The Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta. He joined Fairmont 1994.
“Working with competitors is not new to me,” Clark admitted. He moved from the Fairmont Seattle March 2015, where he headed the city’s hotel association, and his platform was that every property would be more successful if they worked together. “I like competing with friends rather than enemies,” said this passionate sportsman, with a laugh.