The Caribe Royale Orlando is targeting a different customer base than it's used to following a multimillion-dollar renovation, Managing Director Amaury Piedra said.

With the completion of the $127-million full remodel of the hotel's 1,215 one-bedroom suites, a new 50,000-square-foot ballroom and a new lobby, the independent property's offerings have changed to entice both leisure and a wider array of corporate guests. In total, the hotel has 1,335 guest rooms.

Piedra became managing director in the summer of 2020, bringing experience in upscale, luxury and convention hotel management. Caribe Royale Orlando is privately owned by Sierra Land Group.

While most hotel's were scaling back on spending, Piedra used the slower demand period during the height of the pandemic to lead a property transformation. Renovating during a pandemic has been a double-edged sword, he said.

"It wasn't the opportune time to open up a new 50,000-square-foot ballroom and do all the work we did, but at the same time, it was the opportune time because now as the whole country emerges out of COVID and business is picking up, we're already completed and able to take advantage of it instead of others that waited to start their renovations," he said.

To learn more about the Caribe Royale's transformation under Piedra's leadership, read this Q&A.

My family had a friend who was the general manager of hotels. He got me my first job in the hospitality industry at the age of 15 [as a] valet parking cars at what was then the Sheraton Four Ambassadors hotel in Miami. Except for a three-year stint when I played professional sports, I've never worked anywhere else that wasn't a hotel.

Fortunately, I received a call about two years ago from a former colleague of mine from Starwood Hotels. He had become CEO of a privately held company and they were looking for someone to come take the reigns of Caribe Royale and lead it through this massive reimagination.

It was challenging at first through COVID, no doubt about that. The Orlando market, besides leisure, which is driven by the theme parks, is one of the world's busiest group and convention destinations.

A couple of times we thought we were out of the woods when it came to the group market, then a variant showed up and delayed things a little bit. The leisure market started coming back probably about a year ago, but it was slow-going. I can remember the days of 5%, 6%, 7% occupancy. We are past all that now; when I look and see 1,000-plus suites occupied and I see 3,000 to 4,000 guests on property, those days of 5%, 6%, 7% occupancy are definitely long gone.

The Orlando market I think is rebounding faster than many others. There's definitely pent-up demand not only on the group side but on the leisure side as well.

January was the top booking month for future bookings in the history of the hotel. The good news is we beat that in February. We are very bullish on group business. The amount of leads coming through for 2022, 2023 and 2024 remains very strong. This is not only for our hotel but for the whole [Orlando market]. Specifically at Caribe, we're getting a whole new customer, that's why we repositioned it, that's why we reimagined it.

[For sales strategies] we took a different approach during COVID than some others did. We knew we were going to come out COVID as a newly reimagined Caribe Royale with a different target customer in mind than we had in the past. So instead of reducing the size of our sales staff, we added to our sales staff [so] we could hit the ground running and be ready for when the uptick happens.

It's really the corporate and association customer that may not have considered Caribe Royale before. They're seeing how we reimagined the hotel [and] what we have to offer from a group perspective [in terms of] physical, culinary and service. From a leisure perspective, just a fresh new product with new offerings [that have] put us in a new light.

Our rate structure has definitely changed [because of the renovations]. It's a different hotel now than it was a few years ago. It's attracting a more upscale clientele searching for that fun, casual elegance. On the meeting planner front, it's attracting a different meeting planning community. Our goal is to get to anywhere between 65% to 70% group and 35% leisure. However, while we will still do [social, military, educational, religious and fraternal] groups, we're now more heavily slanted to the corporate and association [groups] because of the new product and the new ballroom.

We put all our associates through over 80 hours of service culture training to service that new customer.

There's good and bad challenges that we're working through like everybody else — the increased cost of doing business [and] staffing that we're overcoming quickly.

[We did] a phased hiring process. As we finished different areas of the resort, we would hire for that area. The good news is that we're almost done. The biggest challenges have been putting together that new team and getting everybody to meld together, which has happened, and making sure that every part of the resort is geared towards satisfaction.

For anyone that's going to go through a major repositioning or renovation, it is to make sure one pulls back and receives feedback from the stakeholders who are going to be using the product. We asked meeting planners what they were looking for as we programmed our meeting space and our technology offerings. We took a look at things from a leisure perspective. Make sure you're providing them what they want and not necessarily what you think they want.

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