Hotels for families and friends

We’ve all been there. After weeks of WhatsApping and Zooming, the destination for your long-awaited holiday with extended family or friends has finally been chosen. Flights are plentiful and affordable. Now to book that villa or apartment. Except… oh. All those lovely places you saw months ago when you first started planning are gone.

Or perhaps they were never there in the first place. There are some destinations where Airbnb never really took off, and others where good taste never really seemed to take off in private homes, either.

Hotels still have availability, but booking individual rooms loses something of that group dynamic and can be cost-inefficient, with no option to self-cater. Increasingly, though, hotels are seeking to attract groups, as travelling this way becomes more and more popular, with some new properties factoring this demand into a wider range of room configurations, such as suites.

During the pandemic, the Rosewood Hotel Group opened properties in

Mexico’s Mayakoba (00 52 984 875 8000; rosewood hotels.com/en/mayakobariviera-maya) and on the Caribbean island of St Barths (see Page 17), both with a number of suites that will sleep larger groups.

“Over the past two years, we have seen an uptick in demand for these,” said Lucy Werner, senior vice president of commercial, “demonstrating that while guests may desire a residential setting, they are prioritising the amenities, experiences and privacy that our hotels and resorts can provide.”

A key benefit of hotel set-ups like these is cost. Take a year-round sun destination such as the Florida Keys, which is heavy on hotels but not so big on rentals, especially in prime beach locations. Key West’s new Margaritaville Beach House (00 1 305 292 9800; margaritavilleresorts. com/margaritaville-beachhouse-key-west), set next to the best beach on the whole Key, offers a two-bedroom suite sleeping six (with sofabed) that works out at about £1,000 per night in total for the first week of the Easter holidays. A quick look on Airbnb for the same period shows nothing in this specific area at all, only downtown, with the majority of options that are suitable and comparably styled coming in at well above that price.

Then there is the catering situation. Even kitchenettes can go a long way towards keeping costs down – fridges and microwaves in Margaritaville enable DIY breakfasts and snacks.

Another new Key West hotel, the Capitana (00 1 305 296 6925; thecapitana keywest.com), set in a sunset-facing location on the other side of the

Key from Margaritaville, offers a similar suite configuration, but with a proper kitchen, including a hob.

If you plan to spend most of your time out exploring and are keen on the other facilities a hotel can offer (Margaritaville, for instance, runs an hourly shuttle service to and from the town centre, and partners with a watersports operator), this might be just the group holiday solution you need.

iGroup-think: larger suites are available at the Rosewood Mayakoba, on Mexico’s Riviera Maya

Friends reunited: raise a glass at Margaritaville in Florida