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Eventually after spending some time in the Caribbean and in Phuket
with different companies, I joined Soneva
Gili (also a Six Senses Resort) in the Maldives where I was
Resort Manager for 2 1/2 years. The Maldives are beautiful but after
a while you need a change and I was fortunate in 2006 that there
was an opportunity for me to come here."
Although Six Senses Hideaway Yao Noi has only been open to paying
guests for three months, demand is strong with high occupancy, "We've
been welcoming guests for six months now however the ones at the
beginning were invited to help us promote the resort, mainly people
from the tourism industry. Full paying guests have been arriving
since November; the feedback has been great and we're a little surprised
how quickly word has got around. Our current occupancy is around
70% which is wonderful considering our price bracket and that we're
only just open. We're fortunate that many previous guests to other
Six Senses Hideaways have chosen to come here."
Six Senses Hideaway Yao Noi's
beach
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Six Senses take their environmental responsibilities seriously.
Tourism is fairly new to Koh Yao Noi so it's important to them to
do things right, "We want to involve the islanders and stimulate
their economy if we can. The tourism industry has a human responsibility
and this is why we use natural materials from local sources wherever
possible. Rubbish [disposal] is a growing problem on Koh Yao Noi,
as it is on many of the surrounding islands, because it all has
to be taken away by boat. We've taken the initiative to start, and
to get the other resorts involved in schemes that sort and recycle
rubbish as much as possible. It's important that we don't just make
money and leave. We also offer our guests the opportunity to offset
the carbon emissions produced by their stay by supporting programs
to build windfarms in India where the electricity supply is intermittent.
You can't stop development there but you can reduce the size of
the associated carbon footprint."
The spa at Six Senses Hideaway
Yao Noi
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Guests who stay here are a looking to relax totally, many of them
have busy day-to-day lives, "Our average guests are couples
between the age of 30 and 50 who lead very busy lives and probably
live in a city. Many of our guests have built up their own businesses
or lead high-flying careers such as lawyers and when they come here
they want to totally relax. Luxury hotels have changed, they used
to be about marble floors and gold taps – now they're about
how the guest feels. Juggling a million different thoughts and responsibilities
is challenging, our job is to make guests forget everything from
their daily lives and to really enjoy the surroundings. Our spas
are an integral part of the process; only then can our guests really
enjoy their holiday."
Here, staff members are called 'hosts' and they are a very important
part of the resort, 'villa teams' take care of all your needs. Most
of the hosts live onsite which is an enormous operation. Marco comments,
"We invest a lot of training in our 250 or so staff which includes
six hours of English lessons per month from our onsite English teacher
in addition to many other types of training. We're actually running
two hotels here, one for guests and another for our hosts! The facilities
are good; they have TV & DVD rooms, a bar and a canteen. We
want them to be happy so they can be even better at their jobs."
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