Cayuga Collection

proud suppliers to the www.tropicalbedandbath.com San Jose, Costa Rica THE CAYUGA COLLECTION tainly will play a more important role.” Pfister adds that over the last year or so, the Col- lection has invested a lot in the food and beverage experience across its properties.“We noticed how important the culinary experience is for our guests, especially when you’re in remote locations and you don’t have many choices,”he explains.“So,making sure that it’s a world-class culinary experience is something that’s really important.At the same time, we’re very focused that it’s very local.We use only local and sustainable ingredients. For example,we partnered with an organization in the United States called Dock to Dish,where we have made an effort to connect our chefs with local fishermen.We have grass-fed beef, hormone-free chicken, local fruits and vegetables.We don’t import from abroad; the focus in on the local experience.” Pfister adds that the Collection’s sustainability policy extends to the staffing of its properties.“A lot of North Americans,when they hear the word sustainability, theymostly think of energy savings and energy consumption,”he says.“That’s an import- ant part of it, and we’re certainly concerned about that, but to us, sustainability has a lot more to do with people; it’s about hiring locals, and keeping them on staff year round, so we don’t lay people off.There might be a week or a few days where we might close down because we have a more intru- sive amount of maintenance work going on, but we try not to.” The Collection also focuses on marketing what it calls “The Green Season,”which runs fromApril through November.“It’s a way of taking away the fear of the rainy season from our guests,”Pfister states.“When you live in Toronto or Chicago or Se- attle, rain is very negative because it’s usually very cold and ugly. In Costa Rica, if it rains, it’s warm rain and it usually only rains part of the day. So,we’re trying to take away the idea that you can only come to this part of the country in the dry season.Actually the rainy season is quite attractive because every- thing is green and lush; there’s a lot less people; and everything is cheaper. So, the term, Green Sea- son,was invented by the Costa Rican government, and we’ve adapted it as an industry.” When asked whether there are any other com- panies that operate a business model similar to the Cayuga Collection’s, Pfister says there are none that he knows of.“And the question is,‘Why?’The only thing I can think of is it’s really hard to do what we do–to operate in remote locations with small properties. Some of our hotels only have six rooms and the economies of scale are not quite there, so that’s why bigger companies shy away from it,”he muses.“Putting together a hospitalitymanagement company for such a specialized market is really dif- ficult. But,we love what we do; we see the positive impact in the communities and the people and the environment.And so, even if it’s not the most finan- cially attractive model, it’s certainly very fulfilling and exciting. It’s very easy to get out of bed on a Mondaymorning and go back to work.” PREFERRED VENDOR n Tropical Bed and Bath www.tropicalbedandbath.com