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| The Westin Puntacana Resort & Club |
ST. MAARTEN -- As part of Travel Agent's recent coverage of the annual St. Martin/St. Maarten Annual Regional Trade Show (SMART), we sat down with Alberto J. Abreu, executive director of hospitality at Puntacana Resort & Club, and learned that the resort is looking to add a major luxury hotel brand by 2016.
Abreu told us a deal should be finalized sometime in 2016 with either Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, The Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis Hotels & Resorts.
Regardless of which luxury brand signs on with Puntacana Resort & Club, Abreu said it will be a 200-room hotel.
"This will be a game-changer for us, but let's not forget that the Westin was also a major game-changer for the resort as well," Abreu says of The Westin Puntacana Resort & Club, which opened at Puntacana Resort & Club in 2013.
Puntacana Resort & Club currently includes Tortuga Bay, The Westin Puntacana Resort & Club, Four Points by Sheraton Puntacana Village, Six Senses Spa, the Puntacana Ecological Foundation, residential communities, a full service marina, restaurants, a shopping village, a P.B. Dye-designed golf course and a Tom Fazio-designed golf course.
"We are something that Punta Cana offers outside of the all-inclusives," says Abreu. "We get mostly families from the U.S. who are looking for something different than the all-inclusive experience in Punta Cana."
Visit www.puntacana.com and keep visiting www.travelagentcentral.com for more updates on this story. Follow Travel Agent's Joe Pike on Twitter @TravelPike.