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In October last year (2012), Peter Bonell was appointed Chief Marketing Officer of the Casa de Campo resort, a man whose work ethic and no-nonsense attitude has already pushed through a great number of changes both internally within the organisation and it’s structure, as well as externally to amplify the Casa de Campo brand – rebranding the resort under the slogan “The Sporting Life”. Here we bring you our interview with Peter, in which we discover the steps he is and has been taking to ensure the longevity and financial success of Casa de Campo – the paradise we call home (or at least vacation home).
@cdcliving: You’ve been introduced to the Casa de Campo community as Chief Marketing Officer. What does this mean? What does your role involve?
It’s a new role for this organisation and it’s a composite role of the destination, the destination in the past was split up to a residential side and then the resort component and within the resort there were many other components – the idea of this role is to integrate all of them collectively so that the whole is greater than the sum of parts.
@cdcliving: How are you enjoying this new role?
I’m enjoying it immensely – it’s more my expertise – destination marketing. I did not realise walking into it the amount of assets Casa de Campo has as an entity. I’ve had the privilege of working at some great resorts that are comparable in size and scope, but I did not recognise the actual quality of this destination – that has been a real surprise on the positive side. On the other side of it, it’s been a learning curve, not necessarily for me, but for the organisation and staff, who are coming along nicely. You have a certian way to do things, which you take for granted and so you have to ramp up the staff – they’re all willing to learn, but it’s not neccessarily how they were trained.
@cdcliving: Since arriving in Casa de Campo, what has been your most memorable experience?
The villa owners dinner [Dueños 2012] was remarkable, the ability for us to put together something of that size – and the dynamics of it, I’ve not seen that here before, it was very enjoyable, a beautiful venue and the food was outstanding. I also think meeting the owners for the first time was remarkable, because of the fact that I had come from an interesting situation in terms of ownership on the otherside of the island – this is much more open. I never want to lose sight of the fact that the Domincian people continue to amaze me becuase of the consistensy of their personalities, their natural inate GPS that I’ve not seen anywhere else. Once you have that, the rest is pretty easy to be honest – I see that here even more amplied than I did in Punta Cana.
@cdcliving: How did you view the community at the Casa de Campo villa owners event?
It’s an interesting community – that makes it really fascinating, with different varying degrees of not only wealth, but stature within the community and outside the community, how they integrate and communicate with each other is amazing. There’s also the long standing villa owners that may have been here 20 or 30 years and the new who are maybe the apartment dwellers and how they mix, the legacy of grandfather, father, son is remarkable. It really has a feeling of a big American club, it’s international, but also very American in the way it’s set up. They’re very willing to talk whether it’s to retail owners or to people who have had issues positive or negetaive – they’re looking for solutions. They love it for sure, I found very few who have hostility towards it, which is good, some of course have had challenges and I’ve tried to address that with them.
@cdcliving: How would you like to see the relationship between the hotel and the Casa de Campo villa owners evolving?
They are very important to us, as not only ambassadors, but also as vehicles of business. The idea woul be that you are welcome to endorse your facility – just think about how many villa owners we have and how their tentacles touch via social media and via more traditional ways and the impact that could have on this resort in a financial sense. I’m very open to listen, when you have that kind of talent pool, people that have run businesses for many years, families that have been successful you would be a fool not to listen and endorse some of their concerns so its wide open for me, whenever we’re at a social gathering – me and Gloria, that’s my wife, we are new and at this point I know I don’t know everything, so I listen.
Peter with Jorge Sturla and Philip Silvestri
@cdcliving: As villa owners, our readers are keen to see the reputation of Casa de Campo continue to grow on an international scale – what are your plans to ensure continued growth?
We’re going to take advantage of our assets; golf, polo, tennis, shooting and the cuisine, obviously are world class; our ranking with Leading Hotels of the World, our [AAA] 4 diamonds, but just what those amentities are allow us to say we are world class. We can dabble into areas that you can’t if you have a traditional resort with 1 golf course, and 1 tennis court, here you can literally say that we have the finest XYZ facility in the southern hemisphere and go after that directly. We can go international. We know that Argentinians love polo – lets go there, tennis is more broad base but we have clay courts, so what does that mean – that means that older players can enjoy it as well, we know shooting – in the UK, Spain, Italy and we can go after it. In reality we gear mostly towards the States because that’s the biggest market. The idea would be that we go to clubs, particularly those with international backing, and say listen this is a place you need to bring you club members. It’s working so far. We’ve had a good start.
@cdcliving: We’ve heard you refer to Casa de Campo as “the Sporting Life”, what is your thinking behind this new terminology?
I think originally it was referred to as “The Hamptons of the Caribbean” – so we just amplified that by using the idea that you’re probably a club member if you come here, because it wouldn’t make sense if you’re not involved in some sort of recreation or sport – because we’re not a beach resort per se, we have a nice beach, but that’s not why you’re coming – so why are you coming? You’re probably coming because you like club life; it has exclusivity, you’re preferencial. So I started thinking about that, there’s not a better club in the Caribbean, so we started playing around with the Country Club of the Caribbean, and now we’re starting to play around with other ideas – like “the sporting life” or “let the games begin“, we want to ampilfy the games being sports, because in a true revenue sense, if you came here and didn’t use the facilities – very much like in a gaming model – if you don’t gamble, the resorts don’t need you. Here we like you to play the sports, a club mentality that you can touch from 80 to 18. Is it exclusive in some cases? We’re ok with that, when you come down to it we’re not a very big resort, so we can probably segment when it comes to this club mentality, at the end of the day we have dining and food and beverage which is another form of entertianment, that people would come here and try 4 or 5 different palets and that also is party of the club environment. We have completely overhauled the web design and the logo, taking advantage of the Sporting Life concept and creating a more vibrant color scheme including a bright yellow sun. We encourage our employees to engage with our guest their knowledge of “The Sp0rting Life”.
@cdcliving: In terms of marketing, what in your opinion is Casa de Campo’s most attractive and therefore marketable attraction?
Golf. It’s not even close, I’m a golfer, we have amazing golf, we have 90 holes of Pete Dye, if that does’t blow people away, then nothing will. We have great proximity now that we have Punta Cana airport available to us and eventually getting Santo Domingo with better road access next year sometime, the world is our oyster. There’s a lot of flights coming in here, we’re doing a great job with Jet Blue, we’ve got to contiune, we’ve got to open up even more routes. But in terms of golf, what Gilles [Gagnon, Casa de Campo Director of Golf] has done is built this empire of golf here and all we’re gonna do is help him a bit more. That doesnt mean we’re going to diminish the other amenities, but at the end if the day, it is a golf resort and there is golf carts, and that’s what it looks like and that’s what it feels likes and that’s not a bad thing to be at this level of quality. By the way we have other amenities that are just as good, but golf is primary for sure.
@cdcliving: Since arriving in Casa de Campo what changes have you implemented?
I’ve done some changes in deployment, I recognise that we had assets that were fragmented we had a multiple amount of agencies that do different things for us, so we changed our deployment strategies and focussed in on 4 or 5 different areas that they can all focus in on and work on in unison and that is conceptual and philosophical changes, the idea that there were 4 different organizations working in 5 different directions was not profitable or realistic at this point.
One of the first things I did was host a marketing conference – for all our assets – just to understand what everyone was doing, I have no doubt everyone has good intentions, but our philosophical differences were enormous. We tried to fuse that as much as we can, we’re not done yet, we also built in a module to allow our sales people to be more flexible as relates to business opportunities. We’re not as rigid, we can’t afford to be, we’re fighting a very bad economic times, as are most resorts. We have an issue related to image and brand that we need to amplify, we have a great brand and a beautiful image, but not as many people know about it as we would like. We need to clearly define the message and get away from generic selling, which is what we were doing. Everyone is different, everybody has a different skill set, we need to train them and that’s what we’re doing now.
There is no reason why we can’t be much more profitable and more highly branded than we are right now. There are language issues; our business is 75% American, local is very important and will always be, we have a department for that, but sometimes the language barrier is difficult.
@cdcliving: What do you personally like best about Casa de Campo?
I like the neighbourhood, this is truely a place to live, that just happens to be in a world class resort, I like that I feel community here. We’re friendly people, Gloria and I, we find it easy to acclimate we’ve moved so many times, but I really feel a sense of community here. I know that there are different locations and I know that we have people who are permanent residents, I know that if I go to a restaurant I will be recognised, I love that, it gives us a sense that we are part of something. I live, eat, play here, I like very much. I also like how we represent this country via Central Romana – how important to the economy they are and how much they care about the economy. Being part of that is pretty exciting as well.
@cdcliving: You are a regular reader of www.casadecampoliving.com, what do you like about it? What could we improve? What would you like to see more of?
I am. I love everything current, I am an avid ereader. That is how I get all my info, and I recieve from Casa de Campo Living the info that I dont regularly receive because I’m buried in numbers all day long, so its a good relief for me. It also keeps me up to date – I don’t have a very good short term memory, I like to be reminded of something that might be happening in 25 minutes, so I love being able to see the events. It helps me understand what else is happening and then I can approach that, but it also gives me ideas, on a daily or weekly basis what I need to attach effort to and I cant do that alone, so I look at it as my eyes and ears too – it’s very important.
@cdcliving: You have a long and successful career history, what are the key lessons you’ve learnt which will help you in our new role in Casa de Campo?
Patience, that’s very important. It’s not necesarily going to end up the way you have hoped it would, but at the end of the day it may be just as successful The other thing is respect for history, you have to respect history, at the end of the day someone else has probably tried what you’re trying to do and it may or may not have been successful based on the level of penetration. The third is to listen, because there is a lot of pride here and a lot of people have put their life and all their energy here. The last thing is that you have to believe in what you are doing and you have to have the ability to portray your confidence and I have learnt that over the years. I have very strong conviction, I know how to do this, I know what works, and I know how long its going to take. I know we can turn this around and that’s why I’m conficent of that. I believe that the people that are in the position of ownership and leadership understand that and we’re going to get great results.
@cdcliving: When you are not working what do you like to do in Casa de Campo?
I’m a golfer. I love to play golf. We have a big dog, I walk him every morning – I love that time, I see the Dominican people, the workers coming in, I see a different side of Casa de Campo. I enjoy a lot of things!
Peter with his wife Gloria on the Dye Fore, Casa de Campo
@cdcliving: Which is your favorite Casa de Campo restaurant?
La Caña [restaurant and bar by Il Circo]. I like the bar, I like seeing a lot of people. I can migrate there and meet people. But I like them all – how can you not like Lago Grill’s breakfast?
@cdcliving: In your opinion what is Casa de Campo’s “hidden treasure”?
From the outside looking in it’s Altos de Chavón, because you can’t understand it when you’re looking at the web, even though our web presents it very well, you can’t understand it until you’re walking on the stone. The venue, the river it’s so unexpected when you come to a golf resort to have that. The Marina is beautiful, the shooting, the polo are all beautiful. I go to church on Saturdays and everytime we go up there I’m thinking – it’s not a replica – it is. I’ve had many visitors since I’ve been here and they’ve all been blown away, they can’t understand or grasp it. That has to be the hidden treasure, that’s a great opportunity for a marketing person like myself, how can that become a lifetime legacy that you walk away from and remember? It doesn’t fit into what you’re expecting.
Altos de Chavón, Casa de Campo
@cdcliving: We’ve heard rumors of special incentives for Casa de Campo villa owners. What you can tell us about that?
We’re working on a series of commissions and also a series of discounts, that we’re not putting a monetary amount on or percentage – because we want to fluctuate it by season based on the need for business. The idea would be that as a villa owner you have more attributes and ability to use your card and recieve more discounts and benefits. That’s my goal, that’s what I aspire to do and I believe we’re going to get that done quickly.