With the seal of the Plomer family and a solid track record linked to the hotel and hospitality industry, the Zafiro brand is as unique as the Zafiro gems that give it its name.
Awarded on numerous occasions for its dedication to the customer, its goal is to make luxury and happiness a hallmark of its identity. It currently has 3 5-star hotels, under the Zafiro Palace Collection line, and 9 4-star hotels that make up Zafiro Hotels.
Its latest addition, Zafiro Palace Andratx, shows where the brand is heading, with a commitment to innovation, sustainability and the search for new luxury experiences to surprise guests.
Today we interview Antoni Homar, CCO who explains the support for this year's CON-X conference and the evolution of Zafiro Hotels.
- We live in a period of high uncertainty, in which the main challenge for managers is decision-making. At Con-X we will talk about this, but could you tell us about your own case? How do you deal with decision-making in your company?
- In our case, little by little we see that there is a positive trend towards the recovery of the anticipated reserve, which reduces uncertainty margins in our sector. This allows us to go back to working with more predictive long-term models and not making intuitive decisions. In 2022, there has been a change in strategy based on increasing ADR and adjusting occupancies. In 2023, we will continue to give importance to the rate and occupancy of our hotels, always aligned with the achievement of revenue targets.
However, despite this trend, we are still not reaching the levels of advance bookings that we had in 2019 and we do not rule out at any time returning to the trend of last minute bookings. When decisions have to be made in the short term, we try to base them on all the data we have at that moment and on intuition, although there is always a risk factor - not achieving the objectives - that we have to assume.
- What do you see as the main trends in tourism distribution today?
- I would highlight that, after the pandemic, customers have gone digital and their way of booking vacations has changed. What they used to book through travel agencies, customers now book their own vacation packages, booking flights, hotels and leisure on different platforms, for reasons of personalization and flexibility. They look for exactly what they want, and can make modifications directly with the booking channel, in a more agile and less intermediated way. Another trend is to focus on those partners that provide us with a high level of reliability when it comes to selling. We have had experiences with partners who were dumping when it came to marketing. That's why today we value very much the alignment of their strategy with ours.
- Have you taken daring decisions in your company, and can you tell us some anecdotes?
- Yes, I remember especially 2022 - we were presented with a very different trend from the historical ones. At times, we started the current month well below our targets, and the reactivation of reserves was very short term. This situation generated a lot of internal uncertainty and the biggest challenge was really to get used to dealing with this situation, to know how to manage it and live with it.
- What are your perspectives for this year? Where do you want to go?
- Despite the current complex political and economic circumstances, we can say that the outlook for 2023 is more positive. Our objective is to continue increasing profitability without sacrificing tariffs and controlling distribution costs.
- Why should CON-X participants talk to you, what can you offer them?
- Zafiro offers to all its commercial partners a stable and lasting relationship as long as we walk hand in hand, respecting and aligned with our objectives.
- What is your experience with the events organized by TravelgateX, would you recommend them to other companies?
- Yes, of course. They are very interesting events to gain knowledge of new trends in the field of online distribution, with real examples of different types of platforms, hotel companies, and leading technology companies in the travel sector.