In many ways, luxury villas are the ultimate Caribbean vacation experience. It’s far beyond — and very different — than spending your time in a resort. A villa means you aren’t just staying on an island — you’re living on an island, and in the best possible way. But not every island offers this kind of luxury villa experience — you have to know where to go and you have to find the right villa management company to help you both plan your trip and manage your experience on the ground, from renting a car to stocking your fridge to ensuring the villa is properly staffed. It’s the latter that truly separates the greatest villa vacations — the top Caribbean villas can include everything from butlers and in-house chefs to on-demand masseuses.

Because when you’re staying in a villa like this, just about everything you can imagine is taken care of. And isn’t that what luxury is all about?

Here are our favorite Caribbean destinations for the ultimate villa experience, with recommendations on the top companies to help you create your dream villa vacation.

St Barth This is just about the pinnacle of the Caribbean villa vacation — while St Barth is small, it is filled with spectacular villas, both in the hills and right on the beach. For the most authentic St Barth villa experiences, try St Barth Properties.

The post The 12 Best Islands for Luxury Villas appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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More travelers are looking to book packages to Barbados, according to a new report from the Expedia group.

The company said its hotel partners in Barbados had increased their package demand by nearly 15 percent year over year last year.

Destinations like Christ Church saw nearly 30 percent year over year growth, while St. Peter saw 50 percent growth.

The United States remains the key feeder market for Barbados on Expedia, with 20 percent growth last year, followed by Canada at 15 percent growth and Brazil with 25 percent growth year over year.

Mobile demand also jumped to Barbados, particularly from the United States.

“Expedia continues to support Barbados’ growth with the constant rollout of effective solutions like the Expedia® PartnerCentral App and the recently announce Value Add Promotions. As properties continue to benefit from the company’s wide-range of tools, technology and expertise, we continue to build relationships with hotel partners who see the benefit of Expedia,” said Demetrius Canton, Director of Lodging Partner Services for the Caribbean, the Expedia group. “Attending Barbados Connect last week and meeting with industry leaders and valued partners provided our Market Management team with the opportunity to enhance our relationships in the region and further identify the priorities and needs of our partners.”

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Above, from left: Pinkley Francis, Chairman Invest St Lucia; Kamal Shehada, development director, Range Developments; Mohammed Asaria, vice chairman Range Developments; Allen Chastanet, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia; Bradley Felix, Minister of Commerce; the Honorable Dominic Fedee, Minister of Tourism.

Range Developments, the Dubai-based developer that is spearheading several hospitality projects in the Caribbean, is planning a new resort in St. Lucia.

The company has signed an agreement with the government of St. Lucia to develop the Black Bay project, a hotel and villa development on 180 acres on the southern tip of the island.

The luxury hotel will be developed under St. Lucia’s Citizenship by Investment program and will include 180 rooms.

Range is also developing the Park Hyatt St. Kitts and the Cabrits Kempinski hotel in Dominica.

“This will be our third major luxury development in the Caribbean and we are delighted to be working with the Government of Saint Lucia,” says Mohammed Asaria, Vice Chairman of Range Developments. “Range is aggressively expanding in the Caribbean. The Park Hyatt St Kitts will be completed in the coming months and Kempinski Dominica is advancing with pace.”

The planned hotel operator will soon be announced, and the project could create 500 jobs on construction and a “similar amount” on operation, according to the company.

“We have been working with the developer and are grateful for their patience in working with us on getting to this point of such a project which will benefit everyone,” says Allen Chastanet, prime minister of Saint Lucia. “I am looking forward to the commencement of construction of this project which coincides with our overall development plans for Saint Lucia.”

The post Range Developments Expanding to St. Lucia appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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Vacation exchange giant RCI continues to grow in the Caribbean.

The worldwide leader in exchanges has added more than 150 new affiliated properties in the Caribbean in the last decade.

“The Caribbean is a highly desirable vacation location, and a region where we have seen tremendous growth,” said Gordon Gurnik, president of RCI. “Over the last decade in particular, we have significantly grown the vacation choices we offer travelers.”

One of the most recent affiliations is Eden Roc at Cap Cana, the luxury retreat in the Dominican Republic with 34 suites and a new beach club.

Eden Roc has joined the company’s “Registry Collection,” a luxury exchange portfolio.

RCI has also added the Breathless Montego Bay, through AMResorts’ Unlimited Vacation Club, along with the Marigot Beach Club & Dive Resort in St. Lucia.

RCI has more than 4,300 affiliated properties worldwide.

– CJ Staff

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By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor

We love when hotels make an effort to incorporate a sense of destination into the vacation experience, whether that’s having in-suite Dark ‘n’ Stormy and Tequila set-ups (as at Rosewood Tucker’s Point and Grand Velas Riviera Maya, respectively) or patois proverbs placed on your pillow during turndown service, as they do at Jamaica’s Riu Reggae resort. And now there’s another hotel worth highlighting.

What is now the Hilton Aruba Caribbean Resort & Casino (and was then the Aruba Caribbean Hotel) was built way back in 1959 and is, in fact, the first and oldest large hotel on the Dutch-Caribbean island. A groundbreaker of its time, the now 357-room resort, comprising three high-rise towers on 1,500 feet of Palm Beach, was designed by famed architect Morris Lapidus, the creative force behind Miami’s Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels.

“Too much is not enough,” Lapidus is reported to have said of his designs, which paired graphic shapes with over-the-top details and clever use of light and shadow. And today, more than a century later, even though the hotel is now managed by a multinational giant and has just completed a top-to-toe renovations, Lapidus’ legacy and the impact the resort had on Aruba’s (and, arguably the Caribbean’s) tourism, is still being recognized, respected and celebrated in the décor.

All over the hotel, from the lobby to hallways and rooms themselves, reminders of the resort’s legacy are everywhere in the form of vintage photographs from decades past. A life-size photo of comedian (and guest) Jack Benny graces one of the elevators in the Aruba tower. A blown-up black and white photo of models posing under a palm tree in bikinis and headscarves crowns a seating area. And even an image of Lapidus himself has pride of place in the Aruba lobby.

To stroll the halls of the resort is to take a trip down memory lane, and you don’t have to be one of the resort’s returning guests (we met many people who came here with their parents and now bring their own children) to appreciate it. Take a look at these photos and you’ll see that we mean.

The Hilton Aruba is among the top Aruba hotels.

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