Luxury Travel Advisor - July 2008 - (Page 48)

THE PULSE HOT LEADS Regent Hotels & Resorts has tapped Christopher Cestari (ccestari@regent experience.com) for its new position of director of global sales, promoting the brand’s portfolio of properties in Shanghai, Beijing, Bordeaux, Berlin, Zagreb, Bal Harbour and Turks and Caicos to luxury travel agents and corporate accounts. Cestari most recently served as DOS at New York’s Hotel Plaza Athenée. www.theregentexperience.com Sustainable Miraval iraval Tucson (www.mirav alresorts. com) reports that it has added 16 guest rooms to its destination spa facilities. The 14 595-square -foot standard rooms and two 898-square-foot suites are larger than Miraval’s 102 existing rooms and boast views of the Sonoran Desert and the Catalina Mountains, and are equipped with outdoor showers. What’s more, the new “Catalina” accommodations (shown above) at the property, which is the flagship for the Miraval brand, are sustainable, meaning they deliver a healthy environment to greenconscious guests (and even those M who aren’t environmentally inclined). Some of the ingredients that went into making the new digs sustainable include non-toxic, low VOC paints, water-based adhesives and rapidly renewable, local resources. Each new room has high-performance heating and cooling systems, a solar hot water heater and low flow plumbing fixtures to increase energy and water efficiency. What else is happening at Miraval? Its new outdoor treatment garden has a series of new openair cabanas where therapies are performed. Nice touch: Guests are invited to collect indigenous herbs en route to their cabana for use in their treatments. A useful program luxury travel advisors can offer to their female clients is the “It’s All About Me” package that pairs clients with their own personal Miraval Advisors, who will offer exclusive attention throughout their stay. Contact the luxury travel liaison, Julie Ansell at jansell@miravalresorts.com to make arrangements. Meanwhile, word is that Miraval Costa Rica will open in Cacique in 2010 with 120 guest rooms and 60 villas, which will incorporate Miraval Tucson’s signature features. Other components of the project will include resorts by One & Only and Exclusive and an 18-hole Tom Doak-designed golf course, and an Agassi-Graf Tennis & Fitness Center. Starwood’s former luxury leaders, Ross Klein and Amar Lalvani have left the company to join Hilton Hotels Corporation, where we suspect they’ll develop a W-like product and oversee the growth of the Conrad and Waldorf=Astoria brands. Klein, who appeared on the cover of Luxury Travel Advisor in October 2007 was instrumental , in growing Starwood’s top-tier brands, The Luxury Collection, St. Regis and W. The Cruise Professionals, which is chaired by Mary Jean Tully, has been sold to Travelzest, a travel group that offers specialist travel programs for the sum of $13 million U.S. Tully, who was featured on the cover of Luxury Travel Advisor in October 2006, remains on as CEO and chairman. Tully says the move was partly made to tap into markets outside North America. 48 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | July 2008 http://www.theregentexperience.com http://www.miravalresorts.com http://www.miravalresorts.com http://www.miravalresorts.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Luxury Travel Advisor - July 2008

Luxury Travel Advisor - July 2008 Contents Publisher's Letter Editor's Letter California Coast Tuscan Villas Ranch Vacations Gansevoort South Rancho Las Cruces Reserva Conchal Spas of the Maldives St. Lucia A Gentleman's Touch The Pulse Just Back Sightings Source List

Luxury Travel Advisor - July 2008

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