Leading Maldivian hotel brand Villa Hotels & Resorts has rebranded itself as Villa Resorts.
The brand will make its formal debut at ILTM Cannes in April 2023.
Each resort will be reinvented behind a unique resort concept, incorporating improved products, elevated service, innovative programming, and clever communication to offer genuine value for visitors. This goes beyond a simpler name and a new visual identity for the parent brand.
In its five private island resorts, Sun Island, Paradise Island, Royal Island, Holiday Island, and Fun Island, Villa Resorts has built and successfully managed more than 1,100 rooms since 1986. The group's portfolio now includes seven properties thanks to the building of two completely new islands.
Villa Resorts is currently preparing itself for the next generation of tourists as the family-owned and locally operated company's next generation assumes leadership.
Villa Resorts has transformed its entire business in collaboration with Luxury Branding, the premier luxury hospitality agency.
A new organization's core values, purpose, and vision serve as its compass, ensuring that development is founded on a common philosophy. Villa Resorts is motivated by the personal vocation of bringing its visitors back to a stronger place in their lives. Villa Resorts is one of just a few brands in the Maldives that is owned, operated, and completely run by locals. The natural splendour of the location and the kindness of its residents help to achieve this significant goal.
Each resort sub-brand is given its own identity, which is expressed in custom typography, images, colour schemes, and communication techniques. With this strategy, each property can make the most of its unique qualities and capabilities while still being easily identifiable as a member of the Villa family. The relaunch of the Villa Properties master brand in April 2023 will include the rebranding of two of the company's current resorts in addition to a new website that Journey will design and develop. Villa Nautica, a nautical celebration of Quayside Life, will take over Paradise Island. Through its sleek surroundings and contemporary, urban-style decor, Villa Nautica expresses refinement and uniqueness of taste while bringing to life a sophisticated maritime experience. The resort embraces the seafarer lifestyle with a luxurious touch and complements it with excellent scuba diving and other water sports.
Sun Island will simultaneously change into Villa Park, a beautiful, never-ending Lagoon Pleasureground brimming with activities. Bold colours that embrace the island's vibrant rainforest and azure lagoons serve as the foundation of its updated design. The team continues to lead sustainability initiatives with new concepts like ZERO, a restaurant in Villa Park that serves fresh produce grown in the island's gardens and was just crowned the Maldives' Leading Green Resort 2022 at the World Travel Awards.
The London-based design studio House Nine has renovated and improved the interiors of the hotel's rooms, restaurants, and public spaces. The new resort concepts for each island have been transformed into lovely and practical physical surroundings under the direction of Jojo Barr and her team of dependable and competent craftsmen and tradesmen.
Under the direction and instruction of Food Concepts 360, directed by Michelin-starred Irish chef Conrad Gallagher, F&B concepts have undergone thorough modernization. Gallagher has worked with the Executive Chefs on each island to conceptualize and create reimagined dining experiences.
The award-winning South African wines and MCC under the Sandstone label, which is only available at Villa Resorts, were chosen by acclaimed sommelier Kent Scheermeyer. The name Sandstone honours the blending of two nations and two environments, from the sand-covered coastlines of the Maldives to the stone mountains of the Cape's vineyards. Two white wines, a sauvignon blanc and chardonnay, two red wines, a pinot noir and merlot, as well as a rosé, are all included in the Sandstone collection. Additionally, a Méthode Cap Classique and a rosé sparkling wine are part of the line.
Villa Resorts has created its own coffee brand, Press & Pot, in partnership with Cape Town's Deluxe Coffeeworks. For distribution throughout all of the brand's islands, Villa Resorts responsibly selects and imports its own green beans, roasting them on-site at Villa Nautica. Press & Pot coffee is made on-site by skilled baristas and offered to customers through a variety of retail outlets so they can enjoy it at home.
After a thorough renovation, Holiday Island will reopen as the group's opulent flagship, Villa Haven, in Q4 2023. With 68 sea-facing villas, each with a private pool and anchored in nature, this Humble Heaven blurs the lines between indoors and outdoors to provide a cozy and remote island experience. The design is unpretentious, resourceful, and celebrates nature's lovely fundamentals by making full use of environmentally friendly materials that highlight indigenous Maldivian inventiveness.
Each resort offers thrilling new distinctive experiences that are unique to each island and created to activate the new Resort Concepts. This innovative and fresh local programming.
Service has also received significant attention; this process started with a refresh of the brand's Vision, Purpose, and Values. In order to integrate this sincere mindset into world-class brand standards and quality evaluations, Villa Resorts has partnered with Forbes Travel Guide.
Royal Island will change into Villa Village, a resort that honours genuine Maldivian culture, in the latter half of 2025.
A premium eco-resort called Villa Eden is being built on the island of Maanenfushi, and Fun Island is slated to reopen in 2027 with a brand-new luxury concept.
“Today, we open a new chapter in the history of our proudly Maldivian resort company; a company that was founded by my father almost four decades ago. In 2019, with the guidance and support of our partner, Luxury Branding, we embarked on Project Blue Ocean, an ambitious top to bottom, inside-to-out transformation of our business. It represents a shift from competing towards creating, and signals my aspiration to lead our company to new levels of guest satisfaction and growth. I am honoured to be stewarding Villa Resorts through its next chapter of development and, together with my siblings, proud to introduce our company and welcome you into our family," Ibrahim Siyad Qasim, Managing Director of Villa Shipping and Trading Company, said of the rebrand.
