At Cayuga Collection Hotels, we have broken monthly sales and profitability records every month since June and expect 2022 to be the "best ever." It is hard to believe this after we were on the brink of throwing in the towel in the summer of 2020.

"Revenge travel" is for real. Over the past 18 months, our reservations department hardly has granted discounts, and ironically nobody asked for them. It was all about "the best," "the most exclusive" and "I deserve this vacation." It also helped us that Costa Rica, where the majority of our hotels are located, steered very well through the crises. Costa Rica opened early and implemented effective but reasonable sanitary measures.

The big question now is: Will the revenge tourism miracle last, and for how long? As of today, our reservation books are full for the upcoming high season between December and April. But it is too early to tell what comes next. Rising inflation and the prospect of a recession in our main feeder markets might be looming. The brutal war in Ukraine and other geopolitical tensions cast their shadows.

Since last year, we have been preparing for a possible downturn during the second half of 2023 and the challenges that come along with it.

Demand has been very strong during the past months, but as other destinations start to open up and general demand softens, demand for Costa Rica might slow. We have been preparing internally by totally revamping the customer journey from the moment of a first inquiry to our reservations department to the post-stay communications. We streamlined all communications and the payment process to increase conversion and reduce cancellations.

We are also in the process of renaming the "low" or "green" season here in Costa Rica to wildlife season. We want to make it more clear to potential guests that traveling between May and November is the best time of the year to observe the abundance of wildlife in Costa Rica. With a series of videos and a wildlife mini guide available for visitors to our websites, we hope to increase visitation in the typically lower months of the year.

Juliet Kinsman, one of the world’s most distinguished expert on sustainable travel, visited us in 2022. She was impressed with our sustainability efforts and in recent articles described us as a world leader in sustainable hospitality. However, she also pointed out that we are currently not doing a great job in communicating all our initiatives and efforts to our guests. So, we are about to publish a sustainability guide available in all rooms and also did a rebranding of the Cayuga Collection Brand that will be rolled out as part of our 20-year anniversary in 2023.

The biggest lesson that we learned in the past years was that "it is all about the people," although this is something we kind of already knew. After all, in 2018, we were rewarded for our efforts by winning the WTTA Tourism for Tomorrow Award in the people category. Now, it is crystal clear.

One of the things we did well during the pandemic was trying to take as much care as possible of all our staff and be as human of a company as we could be. Unfortunately, we had to let go of almost half of our staff in April 2020. We decided to not do the furlough model and instead distribute a substantial severance payment to everybody that was let go. Our former staff greatly appreciated this even though it was a hit to our cash flow at first.

The staff members that remained had to accept salary reductions as our income was reduced to zero in the first months of the pandemic. The airports were closed, and tourism was prohibited by law. Some could not afford their rent anymore, so we let them move into the hotel temporarily. We also sent out packages with food to former employees to help them make it through the worst.

Instead of lamenting and worrying, we started a training marathon with the staff at the hotel. We took up all the things we never had enough time to do. We invested idle time during the hotel closures in hours of teaching, learning and sharing. This really helped us make it through the worst of the months. We all felt that there was a purpose and that something better was to come.

When we were able to reopen our first hotels for the local market, we were ready. Starting in August, we were able to increase pay to our current employees and little by little bring back those employees that were furloughed. Today, we have the best team ever. Our staff is paying us by taking exceptional care of our guests. We never felt "the great resignation" and on the contrary, we have local community members lined up to work at the Cayuga Hotels as the stories of how we took care of our staff circled in the community and positioned us as the employer of choice.

For 2023, we plan to double up on all things related to human resources. We call it the "human resources boost." We will continue to improve employee benefits and opportunities for career advancement, while making sure that our Pura Vida Well-Being program for guests also is applied to our team members.

Not letting maintenance of the hotel infrastructure slip was key during the past years. When the hotels were closed, accountants, guides, receptionists, chefs, servers, spa therapists and everybody else helped the hotel look and feel like new. This was necessary, especially in the tropics with the extreme weather and salt spray from the ocean, to maintain the integrity of our hotels.

When demand came back stronger than expected, we continued to block inventory for maintenance, even though we could have sold those rooms, to make sure that the hotels continue to look like new. In 2022, we reinvested over $2.5 million of our post-COVID-19 revenues in remodeling and new infrastructure. These investments allowed us to increase average daily rates at our hotels from 2019 to 2022 by 10% to 20%, which had a great impact on the bottom line.

Finally, a word on sustainability. Cayuga strives to be a worldwide leader in sustainable tourism. It was clear that we would not cut corners in terms of our values and commitment to sustainability even in a pandemic.

The pandemic increased the focus on sustainability in travel and according to different research, more guests are looking to travel more sustainability. On the other hand, it also brought back single-use plastics with a vengeance.

We did not cave into going back to single-use plastics that we had banned from our properties almost 15 years ago. Today, we know that triple wrapping things in plastic did little to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

We have never made more donations in the communities where we operate than during the toughest months of the pandemic. Money was tight for everybody, but a few thousand dollars went a long way, even though we all wish we could’ve done more. The managers at the hotels made sure that the donations made it to where they were needed most. Supporting a senior citizen home in Quepos, improving educational facilities in Monteverde, helping Indigenous communities near Puerto Viejo, and getting the National Park in Uvita ready to receive visitors again were just a few examples of how we spent our funds.

At Cayuga, sustainability is "local" and about "people." We continue to work with local talent, and that is not just gardeners and housekeepers, it also includes general managers, operations managers, revenue managers and chefs. This is not always easy in the luxury segment but makes a real difference. We also continue to provide year-round employment to our staff, despite our seasonality patterns.

Our employees have access to a company doctor program and recently we have been focusing our efforts on taking care of the mental health of our staff. We all know that this pandemic has taken a big toll on us.

Staying on track with our sustainability efforts was rewarded by winning a Global Vision Award from Travel and Leisure in 2022 as we are currently one of six hotel brands worldwide that are changing travel for the better.

We are cautiously optimistic for the next year as we focus on perfecting the symbiosis of sustainability and luxury in hospitality. As we continue to invest in our team members, the communities where we operate and our infrastructure, we think that 2023 might be our best year yet. However, if things get difficult, we are ready to react quickly and make the necessary changes in efficiency. Just like everybody else in the industry, we learned a lot about crisis management during 2020 and 2021. We are ready for whatever comes our way!

Hans Pfister is co-founder and president of the Cayuga Collection of sustainable luxury hotels and lodges.

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