The sales and marketing director of Sun Resorts, passing through Paris, talks about the news of the Mauritian hotel group.
The Tourist Echo: Sun Resorts is in full European tour. For what purpose?
Joëlle Edwards: Since the start of the pandemic, Sun Resorts has been discreet. During these two years, our hotels like Mauritius were closed to foreign customers. This European tour, the first since my appointment in April 2020, is therefore an opportunity to meet our main partners in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Because we took advantage of this forced break to prepare for the future. And the time has come to explain all these changes to our partners.
What changes?
Joelle Edwards:During the pandemic, customer expectations and needs have evolved. To tell the truth, they are constantly evolving, but the health crisis has accentuated this movement. We have therefore made sure to identify them to adapt our offer. We have accelerated the digitalization of our services by launching, for example, a new mobile application that allows you to check-in online, to reserve a table at the restaurant, a spa treatment or an excursion, to receive notifications with practical information from the hotel… We will also be launching, in a few months, a new website for B2C. We are also stepping up our efforts in terms of sustainable tourism. For example, we have inaugurated a second “care” center to help Mauritian corals to regenerate more quickly.
We have invested more than 12 million euros to redesign Sugar Beach.
Is it Sun Resorts’ major product in 2022?
Joëlle Edwards: It’s our big news, at the start of the year, it’s true. We have invested more than 12 million euros to redesign the hotel and its 238 rooms. It is a brand new product, which brings together the fruits of the reflections we have carried out during the pandemic. Especially on the aspect of sustainable tourism. Our customers are no longer content to sunbathe on the beach, they need to find meaning in their trip. All the initiatives we are putting in place will make it possible to respond to this. And we will deploy them to the other hotels in the group if they prove their worth.
Yann Lloret (Director of Sales and Marketing for France and Belgium): We are really seeing the emergence of demand, both individually and in groups or in MICE, on this theme. And we want to do everything to answer it.
You mentioned the launch of a new website for B2C. Should this channel take up more space in your distribution?
Joëlle Edwards: It is possible to develop both channels in parallel. In France, B2B represents approximately 75% of our sales; it is therefore a priority.
Yann Lloret: On the French market, we resumed visits to travel agencies in June. We have already organized four sales tours since then. We met loyal partners, but also prospects. The destination only reopened in the fall, so tour operators and hoteliers were not yet very present on the ground… I think we are taking advantage of this. Especially since customers are starting to visit travel agencies again. During this pandemic, they knew how to show how precious they were. This allows us to look to the end of the year with optimism.
Have you noticed the return of French customers to your hotels since the reopening of the destination?
Yann Lloret: For the moment, we are satisfied with our financial year, which begins on July 1 , 2021 and ends on June 30, 2022. Obviously, the start was difficult, since the destination was closed. But, as soon as the borders opened, customers came back. The most loyal, first, ie 20% of Sun Resorts customers. In recent weeks, we have also seen the return of groups, and large tribes. The average shopping basket is also larger, and the length of stay is longer, going from 9 to 10 nights. These are positive signals. According to our forecasts, we should record, over the 2021/2022 financial year, an almost stable volume of business (-2%) compared to the 2018/2019 financial year, our last reference financial year.
