Each of us remembers that one event we attended where every detail was flawlessly executed and the setting was so perfect that, in hindsight, the only word that describe it all is ‘magical’. Behind the scenes, as anyone working in hospitality knows, the crafting of a lifelong memory for attendees requires meticulous planning that starts months, or even years, ahead of the big day or multi-day conference.
One of the current megatrends for the hotel industry that few predicted during the height of the pandemic has been the exponential growth of events, retreats and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) travel. Aside from simply gathering to reconnect, large and SME businesses are at the vanguard of this blooming demand as many now see events as a form of company loyalty inducement, especially in light of hybrid or remote work policies where everyday team interactions aren’t occurring.
But this resurgence is hardly just ‘events for events sake’; group and corporate planners are looking for more experiential, intimate, dynamic and locally authentic affairs. In other words, they want their attendees to experience those magical moments.
A select few hotels are rising to the challenge, and nowhere is this megatrend better exemplified than in the ultraluxury category where guest expectations all but mandate perfect service delivery and genuine authenticity. This brings us our interview with Tekeyo Bodie, Director of Catering & Events at the Rosewood Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas, who has the unenviable responsibility of designing, coordinating and executing all the technical details that turn those magical touches into a reality.
A Soursop Story
Before diving into what makes the Rosewood Baha Mar’s event presentation spectacular, we first want to focus on a personal story that Bodie shared during our time with him. Hotels at the luxury level are, after all, places where stories are brought to live, and all great stories are centered on characters with hopes, dreams, passions, pain, family and friends.
A phrase the two of us often use to capture this essence is, “The more personal, the more universal,” where even an anecdote or an aside can reveal a belief or common truth that’s more widespread than one might imagine. In this sense, Bodie’s brings his Bahamian upbringing and love for his country into every event he helps create so that the authenticity always shines through.
Notably, Bodie shared with us his love for the soursop, a delectable, apple-citrus-tasting fruit that’s native to the tropical Americas and has taken a particular liking to the Bahamas archipelago. As a child, Bodie would scoop out the cream-colored flesh and mix it with a bit of sugar to make a healthy instant dessert. Meanwhile, his parents also passed down the island nation’s traditional medicine practices which has long used soursop leaves to make a restorative herbal tea.
Surprising, just 300 kilometers away in the United States, soursops are a relatively unknown, still found in the average Floridian Publix supermarket on the exotic fruit aisle. As such, one of many initiatives that Bodie has undertaken is to tell the tale of the soursop at events and conferences in an approachable and fun way by using it as an ingredient in familiar forms like soursop ice cream and also having servers explain its health benefits.
In this subtle, seemingly innocuous way – along with numerous others as we’ll soon learn – Bodie and his team are helping bring the soul of the hotel and the Bahamian culture into the limelight, bestowing the property with its signature ‘sense of place’ and helping make every event a true standout.
About the Rosewood Baha Mar
Given its proximity to the lower 48, the United States is an obvious choice as the top origin market for transients and celebrations. Next, with its commonwealth connection, the United Kingdom has always been a strong second, with consistent airlift from British Airways and Virgin Atlantic bringing in a steady stream of Europeans. More recently, Brazil has become a significant feeder market, with the Rosewood Baha Mar even doing a familiarization last year where the culinary prowess of the hotel was on full display.
All these travelers inevitably converge on Nassau, the country’s gateway, wherein the Baha Mar resort complex is a mere 15-minute drive away from the international airport. First opened in 2017, the master plan is a sprawling, 1,000-acre campus with a beach, casino, convention center, shops, a full range of restaurants, rooftop bars, a Jack Nichlaus-designed golf course, private residences, water park, beach clubs, spas, fitness centers, a sports complex, a games room, an art gallery and a flamingo sanctuary. Its three hotels are the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar with 1,800 keys, the lifestyle-focused SLS Baha Mar with 299 keys, and the Rosewood Baha Mar with 226 rooms, suites and villas.
With the resurgence of MICE in the past three years and no strong signals of any stagnation in this segment, this has meant brisk business for landmark destinations like Baha Mar that offer year-round entertainment. This has also put hotel leaders like Bodie front and center insofar as their ability to collaborate with executives from other properties for large-scale events – like the recent Arts & Culinary Festival held onsite – while also crafting a unique identity for the Rosewood Baha Mar within this larger campus.
Sun, Sand and Sea
What Bodie emphasizes for what distinguishes events at the Rosewood Baha Mar is the thoughtfulness and carefulness in delivering the Rosewood brand’s magical touch, as expressed through every single point of interaction. The story of the soursop as above is but one way that the hotel’s team sets out to craft bespoke experiences that allow guests to feel the sun, sand and sea of the Bahamas.
And this is where ultraluxury operations set themselves apart in the planning phase, Like an artist, Bodie’s approach is to first consult with each client to determine exactly what their vision for the event is, what tone they want to set and what senses they want to evoke.
“Each event is different, so we start by taking this desire for distinction to heart. Then, because each client budget is different, we aim to meet every planner halfway so that the Rosewood magical touch is always felt throughout every aspect of the story that’s being told while on premises,” commented Bodie about his event design thought process. “With food costs now more difficult to predict when quoting a BEO (banquet event order), as well as factoring in the VAT (value-added tax) for the Bahamas, it’s next a matter of consistent communication with all stakeholders. For ultraluxury brand standards, we would never compromise on quality, so our planning process typically begins far in advance so that everyone is comfortable with the guest journey we’re crafting.”
Bodie added here how well-integrated his events team is with the restaurant team and head chefs in order to facilitate private dining and space buyouts for smaller groups like corporate executive dinners or family reunions. The hotel’s popular Mexican restaurant, Costa, has a longstanding reputation for exceptional small group affairs, where guests love the breezy, indoor-outdoor aesthetic in combination with the custom menus that the culinary team is able to create. Funnily enough, the excitement and loudness of a private group reverberating through the restaurant has often led to on-the-spot inquiries from diners eager to host their own event there in the near future.
Another aspect of expressing the sun, sand and sea throughout the entire guest journey has also been a stronger focus on wellness. Having ever-healthier F&B options is a foremost consideration, but Bodie’s philosophy is far more encompassing that just picking the right ingredients. Wellness for hotel groups is about the activation of the senses through those magical touches in order to create memories. One example that he shared for this is the flamingo yoga class, where attendees are guided by an instructor on the lawn while flamingos waltz all around, as capped off by these days by selection of smoothies, green juices and mocktails rather than an alcoholic mimosa of previous years.
An Event Runs on Its Stomach
It should be apparent by now that the food and beverage offerings are at the core of what makes an event special. Whether it’s consciously registered by attendees or not, we all gather and form personal connections around food; those light breakfasts, networking lunches, cocktail reception appetizers and plated dinners all require deliberate attention so that the food presentation and labeling all exude luxury quality.
This is an aspect of hospitality that Bodie takes into account everyday, especially when so many planners aim to make their events bespoke by curating innovative menus for their guests. Bodie has to be flexible and adaptable to requests while never losing sight of what makes for an authentic Bahamian event as well as emerging F&B trends.
For instance, an artfully assembled tray of local fruit can go a long way towards creating a ‘wow’ moment. In the same vein as the soursop, guava is another fruit that’s available year-round depending on the varietal, and thus the catering team has designed a special guava coffee break experience to highlight this fruit while also offering a high antioxidant boost so that attendees don’t experience any coffee crash.
Next, as one would expect from an island nation, local fish and seafood provide a fantastic protein centerpiece for any meal, with the Bahamas specializing in snapper, grouper and conch (a type of sea snail), all while partnering with local fishermen to simultaneously limit importation and preserve the country’s proud fishing communities. With respect to sustainability, Bodie is a member of the property’s green initiative team which views this as an essential, cradle-to-grave recycling process, whereby fruits and vegetables are given back to local farmers for compost while sustainably sourced lobster would have its meat used for plated dinners while the shells are boiled down to make a stock.
Of these three proteins mentioned, Bodie always aims to experience something new in a fun and friendly manner. Bahamas is the largest consumer of conch in the world, and so the Rosewood Baha Mar catering team has embraced this quality by crafting a conch-centric meal experience, serving conch in five different ways – fritters, ceviche, conch burgers, a tomato-based stew and a traditional fish stew.
To close out our chat, Bodie offered some keen insights on the future of food within an ultraluxury banqueting context. For one, mocktails are the new cocktails. People all over are valuing their health by seeking restorative drinks at every refreshment break, while also wanting their beverages to augment the flavor of foods.
Wellness and F&B now go hand-in-hand in many other ways besides an expanded mocktail and green juice menu. Guests want to know about ingredient sourcing and how the chefs are preparing their food. Rather than be an impediment to success, like a true Bahamian, Bodie’s blue ocean optimism shines through in that he sees this as yet another motivation to make events even more experiential and memorable.
For one final example of how the property executes on this vision, the catering team has conducted the occasional conch salad culinary class, teaching guests how to identify juvenile versus fully mature sea snails to introduce a sustainability element, how to properly clean a conch and, of course, how to prepare this signature dish of the island nation. Overall, there are innumerable opportunities to uplevel an event so that guests remember it for the rest of their lives; the Rosewood Baha Mar and hotel leader Tekeyo Bodie’s focus on magical touches presents a masterclass on how to do this right.
