In the summer of 2010 the whole world set its eyes on a Costa del Sol resort thanks to the visit of Michelle Obama, who spent a few days of vacation with her daughter Sasha at the renowned Hotel Villa Padierna Palace, located in a prestigious complex that also has three golf courses.
Ricardo Arranz, owner and alma mater of the resort, talks in this interview about the emblematic hotel, golf and a new real estate appointment.
The hotel has been closed for a few months to expand the parking lot and to carry out various maintenance works on the building, and it reopens just a few days before hosting, from March 14 to 16, the Russian Meeting Point, an event that aims to boost the real estate market and provide an outlet for the stock that currently exists in the Golden Triangle formed by Marbella, Benahavis and Estepona.
-Why do you consider the hotel to be one of the most emblematic in the Marbella area, which has a very high concentration of luxury hotels?
-Here we have done something special, not the usual, a special hotel different from what was being done in Marbella and its surroundings, a hotel with many works of art and made with great care, where each room is different and in each one there are several works of art that have nothing to do with those of the room next door. And the other difference that distinguishes us is the stay of the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obana, and her daughter in the hotel, which further positioned the Villa Padierna brand worldwide.
-Many people wonder if the hotel’s works of art are authentic…
-The works of art are all from the Arbi Foundation, which I preside and which belongs to the family. Many of these works of art come from the Villapadierna Palace, in Madrid, on Goya Street, others come from the Linares Palace, in Plaza Cibeles, and many others have been purchased at auctions in different parts of Europe. Evidently, having such a large number of works of art could lead one to think that some of them could be copies or fakes, and to disprove this we are going to make a book in which all of them will be catalogued and expertly examined.
-Is there any other hotel in the world with as many works of art as the Villa Padierna Palace?
-In my opinion, no, because the ones that are most similar are hotels in Tuscany or Venice, but they have two, three or four busts in the hall or two or three statues in the gardens, but to have as many sculptures or as many paintings as here is frankly difficult.
-Will the hotel be managed directly by the property or by a hotel chain?
–At themoment we are going to take it directly. Precisely because it is an important part of our group of companies, the Villa Padierna brand is going to become the group’s brand. We are going to try to internationalize the brand and even go into management somewhere else. We are negotiating in different places; one of them is Qatar and the Chinese market is also of great interest.
-What isyour outlook for the golf segment this year?
-I think there has to be a transformation in terms of the future customer. In my opinion, you should copy the ski marketing model, how skiing is sold in Europe or in the United States, to try to do the same with golf. Families or groups of friends spend a week skiing in Saint Moriz or in Gstaad or in the Dolomites. Well, we had to do the same with golf, that is, create a destination that is more for couples, three or four couples, or families, where we provide a service not only to play on the hotel’s own courses but also to offer them specialized circuits, the same as with skiing, taking them to and picking them up from the slopes, in this case from the golf courses? In short, to offer a more professional and personalized service than the one we have been providing up to now. We have very good courses but we need to develop a service through which the golfer feels somehow more satisfied.
-When do you think the occupancy figures for the Costa del Sol camps will start to improve?
-In Marbella and its immediate surroundings, the crisis started between 2004 and 2005, and it is a bit like what happened in the previous ones: it always starts earlier and, logically, it ends earlier. In my opinion, the Golden Triangle may start this year to see the way out, although this time it will not be only through the Central European or Anglo-Saxon markets, as it has been traditional. We now have alternative markets, those of the new economies, especially the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have traditionally been ours, although in recent years the Côte d’Azur and especially London have taken a large share, but which we could recover. Another important market for Marbella and its surroundings is the Russian market, and perhaps our pending subject is the Chinese market, which could also be interesting to start promoting ourselves there. Without ever forgetting that our natural markets are the Anglo-Saxon and Central European markets.
-What will the Russian Meeting Point consist of?
-It will be a new marketing format that will try to bring together one hundred percent of the real estate stock of the Golden Triangle in a show distributed in 32 work tables, 12 of them for financial institutions (banks and savings banks), 10 for high standing real estate agencies and 10 for developers or urbanizers in the area. The working method will be through previously arranged appointments and it is expected the presence of about 100 Russian representatives among investors and real estate agencies.
At the same time, Russian investors attending Russian Meeting Point will have the added advantage of being able to visit the properties they are interested in after their face-to-face meetings with the entrepreneurs. Another important aspect is that every day there will be some very interesting round tables. One of them will be with representatives of the Ministry of the Interior and the Bank of Spain to demystify the idea that Russian money comes from criminal activities and to clarify that it is money coming from absolutely licit businesses.
-The second round table will be attended by the Spanish and Russian Foreign Ministries to clarify how Russian citizens are going to obtain both visas and residency. We have to point out that right now a Russian who buys a two or three million pound house in London automatically obtains the residency, while here we have found Russians who have bought twelve and fifteen million euro houses and still do not have the residency.
-And in the third round table we will have the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism together with the Ministry of Economy to establish clear formulas of relations on how we are going to work towards the promotion of the Russian market, both in terms of tourism and investments.
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