How does a five-star hotel find its place in a city that, in principle, is not touristy?
Well, Arrecife, as the capital of the island and due to its importance within the cities of the islands, also requires the space that this hotel occupies because there are other segments of travelers, not only tourists, such as executives and crews, who also need to stay somewhere and receive attention, and they require it all year round. We are not really so exposed to the ups and downs of tourism, nor can it be the case that in holiday periods such as Easter or summer, when all the hotels on the island are overflowing, we are the same, we maintain an average occupancy, which is the usual.
Due to the emblematic nature of this building, can it attract certain social events on the island?
It already is. If there is anything we have difficulty with, except in August, it is having a room available, social, cultural events... because of being in the location we are, in the center of Lanzarote, for having easy access to the rest of the island. We are still in the administrative center of Lanzarote.
How would you see focusing the island more on tourism?
I think that on an island like Lanzarote I don't know if I would talk about tourist municipalities, probably the whole island is touristy. Every tourist who comes to the island undoubtedly passes through Arrecife and many through this hotel, even if only to take a photo from the seventeenth floor.
But creating certain infrastructures in Lanzarote, such as a marina, would it attract a greater number of visitors?
Lately, when talking about complementary tourist offers, we are talking about marinas, golf courses, etc. I think it would be necessary to define it more and consider all those things that the tourist has the capacity to do beyond what they have contracted. Going to see the hermitage of Los Dolores for example, or visiting a town to try a food that is only made there, this is also a complementary leisure offer.
Would a marina enrich Arrecife?
Without a doubt. But filling the island with marinas, no.
There is no need to ask what is the characteristic that makes this hotel special, the building itself...
The building always, since it exists, was the emblem of Arrecife and I would say that it still is. From a social point of view, the fact that it is becoming the meeting center of all kinds, makes it a point of reference as well.
You have been in the sector for many years, what do you think has changed in the needs of the client?
The motivations of the business tourist, of the traveler in general, are always different. If one were to analyze, when in the 60s and 70s, we began to have mass tourism, sun and beach tourism in Spain, the typologies and expectations of the tourist were different, the flows moved in one way. We must always be aware of what is going to happen in the next decade, what will be the motivations, the expectations, the flows, how they are going to move. Since the internet is working, everything has changed, the client is more sure of what he wants, when he plans to go to a place he previously has the possibility to even see it and know where he is going to walk.
You have to meet the expectations of professional, business tourism.
Notice that sometimes I talk about the soul of the hotels, the hotel as a building, as facilities, has what has been decided to do and invest. But the soul of the hotel is the affection with which you treat the client, the affection that you are able or not to transmit to everyone, the pineapple in which you become you and all your staff. That makes you feel comfortable or not regardless of whether a hotel has facilities for children to have fun or for adults to be entertained. For me, the most important thing is the soul of the hotel.
In addition, one of the director's missions is to attend to their clients...
I recently read some analysis of how the figure of the hotel director is evolving and it seems that it is evolving from the internal and external public relations, towards the financial, the controller... in a hotel of these characteristics you have to be a little of everything or a lot of everything.
[Bienvenido Saavedra, director of the Fariones Group: