Business View Caribbean | Volume 9, Issue 1

60 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 1 our sustainability efforts. We’re not preaching but we’re inviting them to get to know the things that make The Cayuga Collection hotels sustainable.” The invitation includes a complimentary back- of-the-house tour of all the hotels, where guests are guided through the kitchen, the laundry, the maintenance area, the employee eating area. They see the recycling efforts, the treatment plant, all the things you normally don’t see in a hotel. According to Pfister, “People are really impressed at how much goes into being a sustainable hotel and then they turn from satisfied customers to raving fans. That’s been the experience over the past year.” While there is repeat business, it’s not on a regular basis. Pfister reasons that is because when you go to Costa Rica or to Panama you want to see the rainforest, have the wildlife experience or the activities, and then the next year you might want to go to Morocco or Chile or Patagonia – it’s more like a bucket list. He notes, “But we do have a lot of people who come to one of our properties, say in Costa Rica, and then they realize we have one in Panama, so maybe a couple years later they come to that. Or when we open a new property, we write to our database of clients to let them know– many of them are