While many Mexico hotel chains try to outdo each other in providing luxury services, amenities and accommodations in the major resort destinations, there's at least one chain setting its sights on the middle market of U.S. travelers who may be happy with three- or four-star properties, and their rates.
Mexico City-based Grupo Vidanta, which owns and operates several hotel brands in Mexico, recently rebranded and renamed its Sea Garden resorts in Acapulco, Mazatlan and Riviera Nayarit (Nuevo Vallarta) as Ocean Breeze Hotels.
The aim, said a company spokeswoman, is to offer "affordable, family-oriented," three- and four-star resorts with rates that emphasize value and an atmosphere that the company describes as "casual, stylish and fun."
It is part of Grupo Vidanta's brand restructuring as it unveils new hotel concepts in Mexico. Ocean Breeze is positioned as a midprice hotel chain, while Grupo Vidanta's other brands, Mayan Palace and Grand Mayan, are higher priced with more luxurious accommodations and amenities.
The new Ocean Breeze group will add a fourth member: the Ocean Breeze Riviera Maya, which is scheduled to open March 1 and is the only hotel in the chain that has been built from the ground up.
The 96-room hotel, 18 miles south of Cancun's airport, offers a spa, gourmet restaurants and a swimming pool. Introductory rates, available through March 30, are $129 per room, including breakfast.
The former Sea Gardens properties were built as timeshare properties, but they are being taken off the timeshare market and operated solely as hotels, the company spokeswoman said. The Ocean Breeze Riviera Maya has no timeshare units.
Grupo Vidanta appointed Norma Preciado as director of sales and marketing for the Ocean Breeze Hotels group. Preciado, who will focus on principal markets, including the U.S., was previously with the Holiday Inn Puerto Vallarta and several other Mexican resort properties.
Grupo Vidanta has many more projects in the works, including four more brands: Bliss, Grand Bliss, Grand Luxxe and Mansions of the World. The first Bliss and Grand Bliss properties, designed as "very chic" boutique hotels with a W Hotel-type atmosphere, are expected to open in the Nuevo Vallarta area of Riviera Nayarit by November, the company spokeswoman said.