From Lima, Gustavo Viescas, president of Wyndham Hotels in Latin America and Mario Mustafá, CEO of Hoteles Costa del Sol, spoke with AméricaEconomía about this initiative and its operations agenda in the region.
After many years of waiting, Peru will be the scene of the first city-airport in South America. This is the expansion of the Jorge Chávez Airport, which will have two landing strips and four commercial areas in 2025. Among the most striking developments, the opening of two Costa del Sol Wyndham hotels stands out. The new branches, three and five stars, respectively, will be added to the existing four-star one at the original airport.
From Lima, Gustavo Viescas, president of Wyndham Hotels in Latin America and Mario Mustafá, CEO of Hoteles Costa del Sol , spoke with AméricaEconomía at the 18th edition of SAHIC 2024 about this brand new initiative and its operations agenda in the region. To begin with, Mustafá believes that Peru's tourism potential does not warrant skimping on expenses.
“The country has one of the seven wonders of the world and therefore, it will continue to be highly visited. So these hotels must target clients and passengers, whether they have a recreational or corporate profile,” says the CEO of Costa del Sol. In addition, Mustafá anticipated that the five-star hotel will have personalized food services, a bar, as well as meeting rooms. conferences for executives, a spa and a five-star restaurant.
CONVERSIONS AND SUSTAINABILITY
It should be noted that the opening of the new Costa del Sol is framed in Wyndham's expansion plan that aims to manage 500 hotels in Latin America by 2028. In the words of Viescas, the company's regional development team is currently looking for two lines of business to achieve the goal.
“The first line is conversions: they are existing hotels from the independent framework that decide to move to an international brand. This basically takes up 60% of our business. The other line corresponds to new constructions, which consists of finding projects in the planning phase. And once acquired, they are born as Wyndham Hotels, from the moment of construction,” says Viescas. In this scheme, the partners of the multinational such as Costa del Sol work . Likewise, Wyndham is committed to inorganic growth through strategic alliances or possible acquisitions of already established chains.
Given the unknown about possible tendencies to bet on certain brands in certain countries, Viescas clarifies that the focus in Latin America is to make the name of the company visible above all. “We are very focused on the brands that are titled Wyndham. There are basically three: Wyndham, Wyndham Garden and Wyndham Grand. In turn, they are associated with our loyalty program, Wyndham Rewards, as well as the sustainability program, Wyndham Green. So, those are the brands that we are most interested in promoting in the region to generate what is called brand awareness ,” explains Viescas.
This last program consists of designing strategies to reduce the carbon footprint in the company's hotels. The measures include the reuse of towel bottles, the use of energy-saving light bulbs, air sealing, and refilling of water bottles, among other measures. According to Viescas, currently, ecological tourism is not a bet, but a reality that must be embraced without question.
“Today sustainability is practically an obligation, because if you don't you will stay out of business. Furthermore, until a few years ago, any investment in sustainability was always analyzed with the idea that the investment in solar energy was, at the beginning, higher than conventional energy. But then it generates savings over time that allow you to recover the investment. Today, sustainability also impacts the business generation of hotels,” warns the Wyndham representative.
