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At the beginning of August Marriott announced that it planned to offer guests more all-inclusive options and that it planned to do so with a mixture of new-builds, conversions of its existing resorts and new management contracts with existing all-inclusive resorts.
Well, now you can add acquisitions to that list too as Marriott has now announced that it has agreed to buy Elegant Hotels Group for approximately $130m and will be folding the groups 7 existing properties into its all-inclusive arm.
Elegant Hotels group’s 7 properties (and one restaurant) are all based in Barbados and offer a total of 588 rooms.
Six of the seven properties are located on the island’s west coast (the coast that faces away from the Atlantic) and while only a majority of these properties are currently operating as all-inclusive resorts, Marriott plans to renovate all the properties and operate all as all-inclusive resorts.
Here are the details that Marriott has shared about Elegant Resorts:
Elegant owns and operates seven luxury freehold hotels and a beachfront restaurant, Daphne’s, on the island of Barbados. Elegant’s portfolio currently comprises 588 rooms, making it twice as large (by room number) as the closest competitor in the Barbados luxury hotel room market. Six of the seven properties are situated along the prestigious west coast of Barbados commonly known as the “Platinum Coast”. The properties are all freehold, with a total aggregate plot size of approximately 23 acres and an aggregate beachfront of approximately 2,600 feet.
And here are the 7 properties in the Elegant Hotels portfolio:
- Colony Club
- Tamarind
- The House
- Crystal Cove
- Turtle Beach
- Waves Hotel & Spa
- Treasure Beach
Quick Thoughts
I can’t share any images of the Elegant Hotels properties as they’re very clearly copyrighted and downloading is specifically prohibited, but here’s a link to the main website if you’d like to check them out for yourself.
For what it’s worth, the TripAdvisor reviews for all seven properties are mostly pretty impressive (Fakespot seems to consider the reviews pretty legitimate with some scoring an “A” for authenticity) and there are numerous mentions (across all the properties) of very good personal service and attention to detail – that bodes well for Marriott Bonvoy members.
Some of the Elegant Hotels properties appear to be genuine boutique hotels (Treasure Beach has just 35 all-suite rooms and is adult’s only) and should offer Marriott Bonvoy members a nice alternative to what most of Marriott’s Caribbean properties offer.
There are two important things to note that I haven’t yet mentioned:
1 – Completion of the transaction is subject to satisfaction or waiver of the offer conditions set out in the offer announcement, including approval by Elegant shareholders so the deal hasn’t gone through yet (although the board are certainly going to be recommending the offer to shareholders)
2 – Following the renovation work Marriott plans to sell the individual properties subject to long-term management agreements under which Marriott would continue to manage the hotels – hopefully, this will not see a drop in the high standards that these hotels appear to adhere to.
Bottom Line
Marriott has already confirmed that all its all-inclusive properties will be bookable with points so, assuming the proposed transaction goes through, some of the Elegant Hotels properties may well turn out to be gems in the Marriott portfolio – it will be interesting to see how many Bonvoy Points will be needed for a single night stay.
