Mauritius-based resort group Sunlife’s strategic aim is to generate more MICE business to supplement its core leisure tourism business at its four luxury venues in Mauritius, Simon George reports.
Sunlife operates four luxury resorts in Mauritius – two on the west coast, Sugar Beach and next door to it, La Pirogue (the first to open in 1976), and two on the east coast, Long Beach and, further down, Ambre. Each provides the quintessential picture postcard image of white sandy beaches, aquamarine sea and swaying palm trees, but each differs in its own right.
Architecturally, Sugar Beach is elegant and colonial. La Pirogue with its thatched rooves offers authenticity and local charm, as does Ambre which is adults only; while Long Beach is modern and contemporary in style and by far the largest. What unites them all, though, is their collective capacity to cater for MICE demand in terms of event space – whether it is an incentive group, a corporate offsite or a wedding.
Size matters when putting on events, of course. But so, too, does flexibility, versatility and venue space variety (both indoor and outdoor), and these characteristics enable Sunlife to mix and match when accommodating MICE requests.
That event space is not in short supply at Sunlife’s resorts was clear from my six-day stay on the island. So, too, the exciting range of activities available for guests – whether it is ebiking, a special beach picnic, a trip to the market in Flacq, playing boules or visiting Long Beach’s biodiversity trail – which the group actively promotes under its Come Alive banner. Sunlife is also serious about sustainability at its four resorts, as was made clear by the group’s head of sustainability Ali Abdool.
Sunlife putting plenty of colour into its MICE menu in Mauritius
Sugar Beach
The first stop on my itinerary was the 5-star Sugar Beach situated at Flic-en-Flac, about an hour’s drive from the airport. In terms of indoor event space, the 238-bed hotel offers the Plantation conference room, which can accommodate up to 350 guests, the Demerara conference room (110 guests) and the more intimate Boardroom (up to 30 guests). L’Atelier de Sens, which is used as a workshop so guests can try their hand at making their own scent or jewellery, can also be converted for an event. In terms of outdoor MICE capacity, the number ramps up fast (up to 1,000 people). During my stay, the events team was putting the finishing touches to a marquee by the beach for a gala dinner in the evening for a UK incentive group.
I met Azhar Nunhukh, Sunlife’s head of revenue management, and Karen Joorun, sales executive, leisure and weddings at the resort who explained that each resort is allowed to be run autonomously of the group.
Currently MICE business makes up just under 20% of Sunlife’s annual group revenue, but the aim is for Sugar Beach to tap further into the lucrative MICE business and to expand that revenue share.
Sunlife’s resorts are running at over 80% occupancy over the year, the team reports. Developing MICE business during quieter periods for the resorts, namely May, June, September and between January and Easter, therefore offers a key opportunity.
“Our strategy is to have more MICE business. Obviously, it will take more share, but the volume of leisure business we have will stay the same. We don’t want the volume of leisure business to decrease but we want MICE business to increase where we have space,” Nunhukh said.
Flexibility and key markets
Asked about the challenges presented by the MICE sector, there was not much that Sugar Beach could not do, Nunhukh argued: “We have large resorts. If you are telling me that we need to accommodate 2,000 people for an event at this resort, OK we won’t be able to. But we will find a way to do it with our neighbours (La Pirogue, for example).”
MICE booking visibility is looking “reasonable” at the moment, the sales team reported, although certain markets like India and South Africa tend to be more last minute. In terms of MICE, France and South Africa are Sunlife’s biggest markets. The UK, which used to be the biggest MICE market, is Sunlife’s biggest market in terms of leisure and weddings, followed by Germany.
“We are keen to develop the UK as a MICE market because we believe we are missing something,” Nunhukh added, flagging that although Sunlife is promoting the company at big shows such as WTM and IBTM, he believed they had not fully demonstrated Sunlife resorts’ meetings and events potential.
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Long Beach
The second Sunlife resort for me in Mauritius was the 5-star Long Beach resort. Situated an hour’s drive away on the east coast and opened in 2010, the difference in terms of size with Sugar Beach is striking, as the fleet of buggies for ferrying guests around the resort next to the reception shows, so too the large number and variety of event spaces and leisure facilities that are available.
In terms of indoor event space, Long Beach has a fully equipped conference centre, which can cater for up to 250 people, featuring individual rooms (Balao, Bombora) for seminars or smaller meetings, and its own veranda for breakout refreshments and dinners. The resort also has five restaurants
In terms of outdoor venue space, Long Beach really comes into its own – for example the Piazza in the heart of the resort, the Green Lawn (for up to 230 guests), the Ocean Green lawn (up to 1,500), the chef’s garden (up to 100) and perhaps the jewel in the crown in terms of serene setting, Orizon, which can cater for up to 300 people.
Shirley Farreedun-Wick, MICE sales manager at the resort, was quick to flag the opportunities offered by the range of venues at the resort, that it is flexible on room cost to attract big MICE groups, and that the ultimate aim is “to make Long Beach the MICE hotel of the group”. She highlighted the ability to hold numerous events at the same time without disturbing guests.
Incorporate some local culture into your conference
Love and golf island
Love makes the world go around, as the saying goes, and Mauritius’s natural beauty provides an idyllic setting for a wedding and honeymoon. Consequently, demand for weddings or the renewal of vows, both locally and globally, is an important source of revenue for Sunlife, and the bigger, the more lavish the wedding, the more scope there is for a partial or even total total buyout at one of its resorts.
Sugar Beach has been able to accommodate a big wedding from India and there is a large Jewish wedding from France coming to the resort, which will include preparation of kosher food at one of its restaurants.
Money can’t buy me love, as the Beatles famously sang, but demand for getting married in idyllic romantic settings such as Mauritius is considerable and obviously requires deep pockets, all of which is good news for Sunlife revenues.
To cater for golf groups, Sunlife offers a spectacular Bernhard Langer designed course on Ile aux Cerfs, a 20-minute boat ride from near Long Beach, which can also be used for private events for up to 2,000 people as Sunlife has a 60-year lease on the island. The company also operates two other golf courses on Mauritius, Anahita Golf Club and Tamarina Golf Club, not far from
Sugar Beach.
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