Q & A with Kevin Lewee, General Manager of the Hedonism II Hotel

SuperClubs’ Hedonism is a brand associated to free frolicking, free will, all-out enjoyment and self indulgence, the kind of resort where you can meet new people, spend time together with those other guests and party all night long till the wee hours of the morning. But all this much hinges on first-rate service, superb cuisine and top-notch quality everywhere. In an exclusive interview with Kevin Lewee, general manager of Hedonism II, he lays bare what Hedonism II is actually all about for both our readers and for those who haven’t made up their minds yet about this one-and-only experience.

Q- How many years has this hotel been in operation?
A- This hotel has been open since 1976. It changed its name to Hedonism II in 1981.

Q- What’s the beginning or the origin of this idea?
A- The idea of Hedonism has evolved over the years. I think that originally it evolved from what was the Club Med concept, but it’s certainly very different now than what the Club Med is today or what it was. The Hedonism product and the Hedonism effort is something that is very much determined by the guest. The guest over the years has had a big role to play in what the Hedonism vacation experience is.

Q- What’s the definition of this hotel, of this style?
A- I’ve been associated to the Hedonism resorts for over 25 years. That’s a very difficult question to answer because there is no one definition of Hedonism. Hedonism is different things for different people, but if you have to look for one underlying reason or explanation, it would be a place where people can come and be free, to let them be what they want to be, to escape from reality for a few days, a few weeks. I would have to say that’s the main definition of what a Hedonism vacation is about.

Q- Is it hot, swingers, free? How’d you describe it in just one word?
A- It’s all of those. We have guests coming here who are swingers and we have many guests who are not. We have never defined ourselves as a swingers’ resort. Even though we’re probably the first hotel anywhere in the world to accept swingers, we still don’t define ourselves as a swingers’ resort. We try to be inclusive as oppose to being exclusive. If you come to Hedonism and you want to have your vacations swinging in the hammocks on the beach, that’s fine. If you want to come and go crazy and the day that you are leaving we have to peel off the walls and the room and roll it up to the bus, we can do it. We don’t instigate, we facilitate.

Q- Is it not a gay hotel?
A- I tell everybody that we have the same policy, and our policy is “we don’t tell.”. We try to be inclusive as opposite to exclusive. Everybody is welcome here as long as they respect the other guests’ space and the other guests’ vacation.

Q- What is your target in terms of age and countries?
A- We, right now, have more guests coming from North America and most of them out of USA. We are very much interested in expanding our market into Europe, into Latin America; wherever there are people who are open-minded, who want a vacation which allows them to shed some of their inhibitions, to live some of their fantasies. We are interested in those guests, wherever they are.

We are focused on and really looking for the 25 to 45 age group. It’s our target market. We are fortunate to have a tremendous amount of repeat guests. We have over 50 percent repeat guest rate here, but we want to bring some new people into the Hedonism experience so we can continue to grow and expand our market and the resort.

Q- What’s the difference between UK and North American guests?
A- It’s the same target. We are looking for the same individuals, as I said, who want our vacations. The main difference between an Hedonism resort and some other properties that people might go to, people might choose from is you have a nightlife, you have a very buoyant, a very energetic group of guests. A lot of resorts you go to, you come with the persons that you vacation with, you leave your vacation and you haven’t met anybody else.

At the Hedonism vacation you are going to leave a whole new bunch of lifelong friends. At 11 o’clock, at midnight, the resort goes bonkers. You have the night life, you have the nightclub, you have the piano bar, you have the all-natural pool; so there is always something going on 24 hours a day at the Hedonism II.

Q- What’s your main target country in Latin America?
A- Over the years Latin American countries have been very important. I wouldn’t say there is one important country, but countries certainly that we have been fortunately receiving guests from, like Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina. We receive guests from all over Latin America. The biggest challenge we have with Latin America is airlift into Jamaica.

Q- And what about the Caribbean?
A- Again, we have guests from all over the Caribbean. We have guests who come from Trinidad, we have guests from St. Lucia, we have guests from Puerto Rico. But again, airlift over the Caribbean is also a challenge.

Q- And the Dominican Republic?
A- We have some, but not as many as the other countries I mentioned.

Q- What do you think of the Spanish market?
A- I think that Spain has a huge potential for us. Over the last few years we’ve started receiving a tremendous amount of visitors from Spain and I think it’s a great market. We just have to find the way to market all our product in that country and I’m sure we’ll get a lot of guests from Spain.

Q- It’s very important for Latin American people to have information in Spanish and that the hotel staff could speak Spanish. What are you doing in this hotel to make this happen?
A- We are in a process now of printing all of literature not only in Spanish, but in Portuguese, Italian, German. We have several team members who are Spanish-speaking and, as our Spanish market increases we will get more people on the team who are multilingual.

Q- How have the Spanish and Latin American markets been faring over the past couple of years?
A- Our European business overall has been growing and we have been making some market inner roads into the European market. I feel like we’ve just scratched that surface for the potential for the Hedonism resort, for Hedonism tourism. We are looking for partners to work with in that European market so we can grow up business even more.

Q- Have you inked agreements with Pullmantur Cruises or any other cruise company?
A- I don’t really have the details of what the tour operators we’re working with in Europe really are. We’ll certainly have more information of who our partners really are. We do business with a lot of the major tour operators out of Europe.

Q- What do you think about the Russian market? Is it a growing market at this moment?
A- Again, we have always received a fair amount of Russian guests. As you said, we’ve always had Russian guests, both from Russia and Russians who live in North America. That’s a big market for us and that’s a market that we are very interested in. But we do have Russians who come from Russia.

Q- Do you have any information in Russian language for them?
A- No, that’s something that we’ll have to look into. As I said earlier, we are in a process of translating all of our literature into the various languages as we are very interested in the European market. So, to translate into Russian would not be a problem for us; it’s something we could do almost instantly. We could also find Russian-speaking staff. So, it’s no a problem. As we gain new markets, we adjust to that.

Q- Do you have MICE special groups to focus on and work with?
A- We don’t do groups here at Hedonism as other resorts do. Groups here develop on their own. If somebody wants an incentive group here, we would love to sit down and talk to them and see whatever incentives are in there for SuperClubs. But groups at Hedonism tend to be self-formed. You’ll find a situation here where five, ten couples will meet while they are here and agree to come back next year. In one year those five, ten couples can grow to fifty couples because everybody calls a friend and that’s how our groups have grown. They are self-generated. We would love to have incentive market, but that business groups tend to go more to other resorts like the Breezes more than the Hedonism.