Creating Transformational Experiences at Playa Viva, as a Core Principle and what that means.

Transformation is has become one of those buzzwords we hear so much today in travel, up there with Experiential and Immerse. At Playa Viva, the transformation is not just about the guest who comes in stressed and walks out relaxed. Transformation is about so much more as you will see in the stories in this edition of our newsletter. This meaning is so well reflected in the comment by one of our team members during a Regenerative Training session, “Playa Viva is more than a hotel. It is a project. It is a space where ideas are shared across cultures and carried by each one of us into our own communities.” 

That encapsulates so much of our Core Principle of “Promoting Transformational Experiences” and many of the different levels that transformation takes place.

Playa Viva is more than a hotel. It is a project.

So much of what we do is outside the walls of the hotels and the roles you normally see for a hotel – hospitality.  “It is a project.” A project? How is a hotel a project? When promoting transformation outside the boundaries of our property knowing that we are co-evolving with the community, that we bring in so much “capital” in the form of our guests and by creating opportunities for “rich” and deep connections between those outsiders with those who are this place, we can begin to be part of creating that transformation. “It is a space where ideas are shared across cultures and carried by each one of us into our own communities.”  That exchange is truly “transformational” for our guests and the community.  But it doesn’t happen on its own.  Such transformation relies on those from the local community sharing outside the boundaries of the hotel.

So much of what we do is outside the walls… and the roles you normally see for a hotel

That is why the Regenerative Training by our team of “outsiders” is so important.   We brought together the local team of “insiders” knowing they think of themselves as “educators, advocates and role-models” in their community.”  The exchange of ideas around regeneration at the training models the exchanges that create daily transformational experiences for our guests, staff and community.

One aspect of the training in particular stood out, the ingenious plastic pollution workshop by Lorenzo Locci, our La Tortuga Viva Sanctuary Coordinator.  Per the story….

Participants formed a circle around a large bowl filled with rice. Mixed in with the rice were also pieces of plastic in various sizes. With the timer set to two minutes, each participant was given a small spoon and needed to collect as much rice as possible without capturing the plastic. When the time ran out, everyone realized they had quite a bit of plastic in their individual bowls, despite their best efforts to avoid it.

As a coastal community, Juluchuca has a deep connection with the sea, so this demonstration hit close to home.

When the time ran out, everyone realized they had quite a bit of plastic in their individual bowls, despite their best efforts to avoid it.

I invite you to learn more about our “Regeneration Stations Training Workshop”  and the other core values we covered, 1) Promoting Biodiversity, working within 2) Systems Designed to Capture and Store Water and Energy, and to 3) Create Meaningful Community. 

Core to regenerative thinking is whole systems thinking. While the workshops, discussed in this newsletter/blog posts, were divided into different topic areas focused on different core values/principles, yet as a whole system, all these values are interconnected. As discussed above, our core value of Promoting Transformation Experiences was part of every workshop, every discussion, every interaction.

As the owner of Playa Viva, I’m often asked to give a short talk about Playa Viva. I often have a hard time with these types of short presentations because I have a hard time articulating what we do briefly. Since we do so much, it is hard to encapsulate our difference in one statement. But after reading about the work generated by our team in the Regenerative Stations, I now have my new opening line. “Playa Viva is more than a hotel. It is a project. It is a space where ideas are shared across cultures and carried by each one of us into our own communities.”  We create true transformative experiences.