It’s almost 40 years since BodyHoliday Saint Lucia opened in 1988. The trade-friendly resort was well ahead of the times, promoting health and wellness-focused holidays long before they exploded into a mainstream, multi-billion-pound industry.
As a third-generation hotelier, chief executive Andrew Barnard has served in the family business – Sunswept Resorts, which also includes StolenTime in Saint Lucia – for many years. He is now the driving force behind its international expansion, with the BodyHoliday Algarve due to open in 2029.
Virgin Atlantic’s complete withdrawal from Saint Lucia is a blow to the island’s tourism industry, but Barnard assures his plans to expand BodyHoliday pre-date the airline’s decision to drop its seasonal service last winter.
“It seemed like a logical step, to bring an iconic Caribbean hotel to within a 2.5-hour flight time from London. We’ve been working in the UK market for 40 years and everybody knows how to sell us, that we’re a life-changing experience of wellness and a destination spa, we’re all-inclusive and you get a spa treatment included every day. All that magic is going into Portugal,” he explains.
While Barnard concedes that operational costs are higher in Europe, he assures that he has “budgeted for rates that are comparable to Saint Lucia” and there will be considerable savings on the airfare. With BodyHoliday Saint Lucia already boasting an impressive repeat guest rate of 50%, he hopes UK guests will cross pollinate the two sites and turn their annual BodyHoliday into a twice-or-thrice yearly event, one in Saint Lucia and one or even two in Portugal.
A long search
Barnard also explained that he had been searching for the right area for many years, with locations in North Africa, Italy, Greece, Spain, other Caribbean islands and even Central America coming under consideration.
In the late 2010s, he carried out several site visits in Portugal and almost bought a site near the Douro Valley Six Senses. However, in 2019, a contact tipped him off about a piece of land in the Algarve, bordering the Rio Formosa nature reserve, which he went to visit:
BodyHoliday Algarve will be located a 45-minute car journey from Faro airport
“I walked out onto the land and I just knew, that was the site for us. It has that sense of connection to nature, and is 200 metres from the beach, with direct unimpeded access.”
But Barnard’s desire to purchase the land was hindered by legal obstacles, which were only cleared when the owners went bankrupt during Covid.
“By 2022, we owned the land,” he said. “Then began the process of design, planning permissions and ecological surveys, and all the necessary things that take a long time for a project of this size and significance.”
Leadership for a new era
Barnard has also been busy assembling his “world-class management team at the heart of Sunswept Resorts”, which includes executives from the likes of IHG Europe and Fairmont.
“We’ve been structuring the business so we’re ready for international expansion and we’re really professionally and properly doing this,” he says. “It’s very important we deliver the product at a top-class level.”
And while he will not be drawn on any particular plans, he does confirm that further expansion is on the cards: “We’re already pipelining other destinations, across the Caribbean, Central America and pockets of Europe for expansion opportunities. I have a development team looking at stuff like that and it is part of a wider intention to grow.”
Barnard is confident now is the right time to grow a BodyHoliday empire, given how swiftly the market is embracing regenerative travel. “The growth of communication and technology has blessed us with an enormous power at our fingertips but it’s also chained us to our work, to high levels of productivity and ultimately stress,” he says.
“Our time-pressured, stressed-out guests are more frequently moulding their leisure time with their wellbeing. The pursuit of wellness within our travel opportunities is beyond a choice now, it’s a cultural zeitgeist. People enjoy their spin class, their yoga class and the community that it brings. Because otherwise they’re on the phones, right? Yoga is the new church, and the coming together in that ritual is becoming more and more socially important.”
Eastern Algarve's microclimate
While Barnard recognises that many countries are driving the wellness agenda, he says there was an important reason why Portugal stood out for him, and it’s to do with climate: “While we have seen a lot of countries in the Mediterranean baking in 40-degree-plus heat in recent summers, the Eastern Algarve has a microclimate that sits outside the Med. During the summer months, it's a few degrees cooler, with a lovely Atlantic breeze that has been an amazing blessing.”
What’s more, sea temperatures in the Eastern Algarve tend to be a few degrees warmer than the Western Algarve. “Our site is quite unique in that in the summer it has a cooler average temperature, and in the shoulder seasons, a favourable climate and a beautiful warm sea – I’ve been swimming in the Eastern Algarve in November.”
This ability to offer a wellness holiday in Europe year-round became the reason Barnard was not willing to compromise by investing in a different site, with a shorter season. “In January, February, March, you’ll find the Algarve is between 17 and 20 degrees, it’s sunny, you can get on a mountain bike and ride beautiful trails. You can go riding, running on the beach, do yoga on a rooftop. We’ll have nine 18-hole courses within a 15-minute drive.”
The aesthetic of the BodyHoliday Algarve will have a 'sense of place', assures Barnard
There are other reasons why they settled on Portugal, he adds, referencing the country’s food, wine and culture as contributing pillars. And while the resort’s Caribbean origins will be represented in its laidback vibe, the architecture and design will be inspired by its Portuguese home.
Still about the fun
“We’re about a transformation experience of wellness but it still remains a holiday. It still has that fun vibe,” Barnard says.
“It has taken us a very long time,” he acknowledges. “But all the way along our objective has been to open the best wellness holiday in the world.”
And although travel agents still have to wait another three years to get clients out to Portugal, he encourages them not to delay in embracing wellness sales, an area of the industry he feels they can excel in.
“Wellness is not a cookie cutter formula and we all have different needs,” he advises. “BodyHoliday has excellent competition – the likes of Clinique La Prairie in Montreux and Lefay Resort & Spa Lake Garda. These places do magical work but we all do it with a different flavour and approach.
“A travel agent’s ability to understand the wellness market, the personalisation opportunities that stem from that, and the ability to advise their customers on an emotional and spiritual level is something that Artificial Intelligence can’t do.”
