Mabel Ocampo, Director of Sales & Marketing, and Rick McCauley, Senior Director, Sales & Marketing, Canada, Barceló Hotels & Resorts
Travel agents at Barceló's mock wedding reception
Table arrangements from Barceló's wedding product line
To promote its wedding product, Barceló Hotels and Resorts hosted a mock wedding reception for select travel agents last week at Toronto’s Sheraton Hotel and Conference Centre.
Representatives from the hotel chain were positioned at the head table while guests sat in roundtables throughout the ballroom. The set-up featured designs and table arrangements from Barceló’s wedding line and even included a legit cake along with a proper bouquet toss.
The company highlighted 3 properties - Barceló Huatulco Beach, Barceló Maya Beach and Barceló Bavaro Beach Resort - that were poised to host a destination wedding. Reps from the hotels boasted about the properties’ variety in terms of reception venues, custom packages, cuisine, and cultural ceremonies such as Hindu, Jewish and Catholic – the Maya Beach resort even has a Catholic church on site.
Recently, Barceló’s bridal experts completed Hindi and South Asian wedding courses at event planning firm Rose Events in order to better assist guests of different cultures. To complete the courses, staff was required to provide a thorough understanding of various food, beverage, service standards and wedding traditions.
It is distinctions such as these that set Barceló apart from the competition according to Rick McCauley, Senior Director, Sales and Marketing, Canada. “We want all the groups’ agents to understand what makes a successful wedding,” McCauley said, adding that travel agents can rest assured their clients will be taken care of when they book with Barceló.
“We tried to standardize our wedding packages but at the same time we tried to be flexible. If clients want to modify the standard packages we are open to that and we encourage them to go as deluxe as they want.”
“We understand that booking a wedding is hard work and so, many of our packages include commission for agents,” McCauley added. “In fact, we will be launching a promotion this winter for agents to win various prizes such as computers, iPads and gas cards for wedding bookings made from the program launch until April 2015. We will be releasing more details soon.”
McCauley also mentioned that Barceló offers a lot of choice with its different hotels and, as featured in Open Jaw’s Headliner series, the renovations at Barceló Maya Beach and Barceló Maya Caribe will offer guests even more value and upscale wedding locations to choose from. These properties are set to re-open in December.
In an interview with Open Jaw’s Nina Slawek, McCauley said that the Maya Beach and Maya Caribe upgrades will mirror last year’s revamp of Barceló Bavaro Beach Resort and will include updated entrances, lobbies and guestrooms, as well as new restaurants and entertainment areas.
