Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa Soaring to New Heights

A Native American pueblo joins forces with a large hotel chain to showcase a tradition of hospitality that goes back more than 1,000 years.

by Laura Watilo Blake (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
March 2007
 

 

Hyatt Regency Tamaya AT A GLANCE • Year Established: 2001 • Number of Employees: 419 • Number of Guest Rooms: 350 • Tamaya Mist Spa: 16,000 sq. ft. • Indoor Meeting Space: 21,650 sq. ft. • General Manager: Jerry Westenhaver • Executive Chef: Mark Ching • Food & Beverage Director: Eugene Mardell • Director of Catering: Troy Wood • Director of Sales: Ina Santellanes • Spa Director: Joe Herman • Executive Assistant Manager, Rooms Division: Dan Johnson • Equestrian Center Manager: Connie Collis • Recreation Manager: Alicia Ortiz • Cultural Coordinator: Syreeta Menchago Twin Warriors Golf Club AT A GLANCE • 2006 Rounds: 20,000 • Director of Golf Operations: Roger Martinez, PGA • Head Golf Professional: Derek Gutierrez, PGA • Director of Instruction: Sandy Lemon, LPGA • Tournament Director: Crae Fields, PGA Apprentice • Superintendent: Todd Huslig

The Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa has recorded strong growth in its meeting and group business during the first quarter of 2007. “We came off a record year last year, and it looks like we’ll beat that by another 11 percent this year,” says General Manager Jerry Westenhaver. “[Meeting planners] are looking for new places where their groups can have a unique experience.”

The sun abandons its perch on the horizon, disappearing over radiant crimson cliffs, leaving the distant peaks of New Mexico’s Sandia Mountains bathed in pastel hues. With tears in his eyes, the Tamayame tribal elder slowly turns toward the sacred Tuyuna Mesa to offer a blessing to Mase’ewi and Uyuye’ewi, the twin warriors who led their people from the underground world to this land in ancient times. As if on cue, coyotes emerge from their den and dash across the fairway of the 14th hole at the Twin Warriors Golf Club—in front of an audience comprised of potential meeting customers and the stunned management team of the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa.

“The whole setting was magical,” says Director of Catering and Convention Services Troy Wood, who might have been an Oscar-winning movie director in another life. Instead, he focuses his creative talent and enthusiasm (“The enthusiasm is easy, because it’s such a beautiful property,” he says) on crafting unique—and, well, “magical”—site inspections for meeting planners and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. That’s the best way to entice them to bring their groups to this 500-acre resort property, located between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, on the Santa Ana Pueblo—one of 21 sovereign tribal nations in the state.

Wood, Tamaya’s sales team (headed by Nina Santellanes, the Director of Sales and Marketing) and the entire staff leave a lasting impression on potential clients with their hospitality and high service standards, the genuine cultural experience provided by the resort, and its unique setting (the aforementioned coyotes were just an added bonus).

 

Welcoming resort guests with open arms, the sculpture in the Plaza of the Generations reflects the tradition of hospitality among the people of the Santa Ana Pueblo.

“We will work our butts off to get potential clients back down here for a planned meeting,” Wood says. “If we do 10 [site inspections], we’ll nail nine of them. And the only reason we don’t get that extra one is purely because the clients will change to dates that aren’t available.”

The higher-than-average booking ratio has already produced strong growth for the six-year-old property in the first quarter of 2007, with group business accounting for nearly 70 percent of the resort’s occupancy.

“We came off a record year last year [10 percent growth], and it looks like we’ll beat that by another 11 percent this year,” says General Manager Jerry Westenhaver, who came on board in December 2005. He attributes the growth to aggressive marketing efforts in 2006, a host of accolades for the property’s spa, restaurant and golf facilities, and “jaded” meeting planners and goers who are looking for new destinations.

“We have a great market to go after,” Westenhaver says. “If you mention New Mexico, people still wonder if they need a passport. If you talk to 10 people, maybe two or three know what New Mexico is about, and maybe one has actually been here. They’ve been to Orlando, they’ve been to Maui and they’ve been to the Scottsdales of the world. But we’re still a very affordable, high-end resort in a location that gives them a Native-American experience they’ve just never had before.”

Westenhaver quickly stresses another differentiating aspect of the resort. “We aren’t an Indian casino operation that is often associated with Native-American ownership,” he says. “We’re a living cultural museum.”

 

Troy M. Wood, Director of Catering/ Convention Services

Creating a New Culture
Guests aren’t the only ones who are experiencing Pueblo life for the first time. Westenhaver, originally from Hawaii, has been adjusting to working for the one-of-a-kind property (one of the largest resorts developed on Native American land), which is operated by the Hyatt Corporation, but owned by the Pueblo of Santa Ana.

“It’s great to be a part of such a unique economic business model,” he says. “The Hyatt doesn’t have anything else like it. On a sovereign nation, we’re building a new society. I am a steward as much as a General Manager. Making money is important, but the culture is just as important to us. The [Pueblo leaders] look to me to make sure that what we do in this hotel is culturally pure.”

While Westenhaver reports to the Hyatt, he also meets frequently with the Santa Ana Hospitality Corporation, comprised of five tribal members who are elected to two-year terms.

“One of the wonderful things abut working with the five Board members is that there’s a lot of healthy discussion about how to get the best return for their money, which goes into a general fund,” Westenhaver says. The revenues from the resort operation go toward paying for school, housing and senior programs in the Pueblo community (“They are actually taking their livelihood from being dependent on government funding to being totally independent,” Westenhaver adds). In addition, they contribute to making improvements to the amenities on the resort property, including Twin Warriors Golf Club, the adjacent 18-hole, Gary Panks-designed course that has been routed in and around archaeological sites.

 

“I am a steward as much as a General Manager. Making money is important, but the culture is just as important to us.” — Jerry Westenhaver, GM

“In the long term, we’d like to expand the resort,” Westenhaver says. “We need more rooms [from the current 350] and a bigger ballroom. In the short term, we’re trying to develop revenue streams that make it feasible for us to do that.”

The first thing on the agenda is growing hotel occupancy on the leisure side (“Our transient business was a little down last year,” Westenhaver says) and increasing the average daily room rate. Success in those areas will ensure the growth necessary to fund the hotel projects and a clubhouse expansion at Twin Warriors.

Roger Martinez, Director of Golf and General Manager of the Twin Warriors Golf Club, expects F&B revenues at the Atush Bar & Grill to exceed $1 million, after a multi-million-dollar clubhouse expansion is completed in 2009.

While construction is slated to begin this year, unexpected expenses may cause some delays. “We had some big storms,” Westenhaver says. “And some of that money will have to go toward building a better drainage system on the property.”

Coming Into Its Own
Opened in 2001 just before 9/11, the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa not only weathered that difficult period, but then quickly amassed awards that have helped build momentum for the property, which is now “coming of age,” according to Westenhaver. Here’s a closer look at how various departments have contributed to the resort’s growth and maturity:

Golf—Besides being home to a pack of coyotes, Twin Warriors’ award-winning championship course (ranked 49th out of “America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses” by Golf Digest for 2005-2006) routes in and around archaeological sites that point to human habitation dating back nearly 1,200 years. The course also provides an up-close look at the Santa Ana Pueblo’s sacred butte, known as Tuyuna (“Snakehead”) Mesa, which is off-limits to resort guests.

“They don’t hike over golf courses, so we convinced [the Pueblo leaders] to build really close to the butte,” says Roger Martinez, the Director of Golf and General Manager. “And golfers don’t wander much off the course of play. If they do, the GPS will alert us in the pro shop.”

Each golf car is equipped with a GPS system that not only provides interactive communication between the golfer and the pro shop, but also has a live leaderboard function for tournament play, and helps navigation on two holes that have blind tee shots. It also helps manage play on the course in other ways. “If there’s a stack-up on a certain hole, we can tell,” Martinez says. “We’ll send out ‘ambassadors’ to help golfers.”

 

The ambassadors are positioned every six holes, and tasked with notifying golfers about unusual course conditions, repairing divots, cleaning clubs and passing out mango-scented towels. “You even get a free drop if you hit a ball in areas that are off-limits,” Martinez says. “You can proceed with no penalties.”

With the course in good shape, management is finalizing plans to build a new multi-million-dollar clubhouse that it hopes to complete in time for the PGA Professional National Championship in June 2009. The new clubhouse would wrap around the current facility, and feature a larger food and beverage operation that could easily exceed $1 million in revenues, Martinez says.

“A new clubhouse would certainly give us the opportunity to compete with other high-end clubs that can currently offer a turnkey experience to the corporate and charitable events that exist in our marketplace,” says Martinez. “If all goes as planned, we hope to begin construction by this summer, although other priorities have been placed in front of

Eugene Mardell, Director of Food & Beverage

the clubhouse project.”

“We want people to see the fresh produce and things being prepared in front of their eyes,” says Eugene Mardell, Director of F&B, about the

Food & Beverage—With the large number of groups that visited the resort last ye ar, Westenhaver says the property’s “catering business went through the roof.” Business in the six restaurants on the property grew by 23 percent last year, thanks to new initiatives launched by Executive Chef Mark Leighton Ching.

Since it opened, the Corn Maiden restaurant has been one of New Mexico’s top-rated fine dining establishments ( “one of the best meals of my Albuquerque years—in terms of service, content and presentation,” declared Albuquerque Tribune Reporter Carrie Seidman), known for its tapas and Brazilian churrasco (barbequed meats, fowl and fish). Ching, who joined the resort in August 2005 and oversees F&B ope rations at 15 other Hyatt properties, began introducing more sophisticated sauces, as well as new dishes that were inspired by local favorites, but also drew on the talents of the property’s other chefs.

In the process, Ching, Chef de Cuisine Bruno Gras and Executive Sous Chef Kimo Akana developed what they call “NewMex-Asian” cuisine, merging traditional New Mexican food with flavors of the Pacific Rim.

“We discovered similarities in the ingredients used,” Ching says. “If an Asian dish calls for Thai chiles or Szechuan peppercorns or walnuts, we would substitute red or green chiles and pinenuts. We suddenly realized these flavors blend really well together.”

The resulting dishes—such as the Corn Maiden’s flat iron veal and blue corn lobster tempura, and the Santa Ana Cafe’s signature “NewMexAsian” flounder (marinated in Patrón tequila, scallion and grated ginger and served on a Southwe

Mark Leighton Ching, Senior Executive Chef

st Asian slaw drizzled with hot scallion oil)—have garnered “rave reviews,” Ching says. “Here at Tamaya, it’s all about the journey; we take people on a journey across the palate.”

Spa—The journey continues in the Tamaya Mist spa, ranked eighth in the United Sta tes and Canada by readers of Travel + Leisure magazine in its 2006 World’s Best Awards survey. The 16,000-sq.-ft. facility, which includes 12 treatment rooms, a full-service salon, a state-of-the-art fitness center and a yoga studio, has seen steady growth since it opened in 2001.

Several initiatives have been implemented to continue the spa’s commitment to quality service and treatments, Spa Director Joe Herman says. Corporately, the first step has been aligning products under the Hyatt Pure brand with 40 other spas worldwide, to “give us a consistency, but still allow each spa to retain its identity and uniqueness,” according to Herman.

And that’s why people will find native-inspired treatments like “Ancient Drumming”—a body wrap that uses mud from the Jemez Mountains infused with New Mexico red chili, followed by gentle “drumming” with flaxseed-filled muslin bags that have been dipped in piñon-scented oil.

The biggest focus, though, has been on eliminating the front-of-the-house reservation system, so the spa hosts ca

Joe Herman, Spa Director, expects 10 percent growth in the spa this year. “With the tools I’ve been given, it doesn’t seem too difficult to achieve.”

n focus on greeting guests, making them comfortable and taking care of their needs after a treatment (“Business grew enough to separate the two,” Herman says). All spa employees have been trained on selling and customer-service techniques that “take the role from that of an ‘order taker’ to more of an ‘experience creator’ by learning to ask the right questions, establish what the guests need and be able to guide them through the process,” Herman notes.

The 16,000-sq.-ft. Tamaya Mist Spa offers distinctive treatments that use cutting-edge techniques and indigenous healing herbs.

The spa menu is being revamped to support that initiative through the creation of “journeys”—full- and half-day packages targeting specific needs, such as hydration or detoxification. The staff is always testing new ingredients for the treatments as well; Herman is currently researching the possibility of using turquoise dust, thought by Native Americans to have healing properties.

But first, “we want to make sure we’re using it in a way that is appropriate to the culture,” he adds. “We want to create wonderful experiences, but we want them to also be authentic.”

And best of all, no passport is required. C&RB