Fernando Bandres has a rich background in tourism, hospitality, and business management. He is a seasoned Hospitality & Tourism Manager with over 30 years of international experience across Europe, Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Proven expertise in boutique hotels, eco-tourism and wellness projects, leading multicultural teams in remote and high-end destinations. Certified ICF Coach and NLP Practitioner, I bring a holistic, people-centered approach to luxury hospitality, creating meaningful guest experiences aligned with sustainability and wellbeing principles. We asked him about the sales and marketing strategy of the Ecoboo Hotel.
-As you are the Sales and Marketing director of Ecoboo Hotel, let us begin with some professional questions. From which countries do you have the most guests?
-It changes a little bit between the low season and the high season. In winter time we have a lot of people from Europe, mainly from Italy they are the 60 percent of our guests, Portuguese people about 20 percent, as the owner is a Portuguese man, people there are curious what a citizen did here in the Maldives, the rest is coming from many nationalities but in summer time here, in June, July, August in the low season we have a lot of Russians, Chinese and a mix from different countries from Europe also. Things are changing, at the beginning we had mainly Italians but now all the nationalities are growing in our hotel. We have honeymooners, we have families, 50 years anniversary celebraters, so it is very mixed. Maldives is a destination for everybody, there is a lot to do and a lot to discover.
-How do you promote and advertise the hotel?
-We are in the big booking surfaces and from last years we began to cooperate with a lot of tour operators and travel agencies this is one duty of the Sales team, my background was also working with tour operators so I know quite well my colleagues there and we started to promote our hotel also in touristic fairs, like ATM Dubai, ITB Berlin, WTM London, but the best publicity we can have is our guests and it is working very well. We also have a lot of people who are repeaters, they come sometimes three-four-five times although we are only three years old at the hotel.
-This is a very unique hotel? How would you categorize it?
-For me the hotel has a therapeutic effect. Without notice you are on the ground, barefoot, all our energy is balanced with Earth, normally we live in a city where we do not realize that. Also the people here go to sleep time very early, wake up very early which is also very good as our biorithm is adapts to the sun energy, we are always in connection with the nature so besides the nature effect it has a psychological effect, too. People tell us when they leave: “I do not know why but I feel different. More energy, more relaxed.” This is the best I think we have here.
-What about the programs for the tourists? As I know you have more programs each day, morning, afternoon and evening programs. What is the famous Pack Experience?
The Pack Experience is a 7 nights Full Board Service, with daily boat tours., designed to offer a full experience of the true Maldives. We bring the guests from Male and back, so the transfer is included, and also we include a daily tour for the guests each day. One day we go to swim with sharks, the other day with dolphins and turtles, we go for a fishing in an old tradition, as the Maldivian people were fishing so when the people check out they have a lot of life experience in the luggage. We used to say we do not sell the rooms, we sell experience.
We have other personalized packs, as well, just like game fishing, weddings, private events, corporate events, retreats, diving and others.
We create a program whose goal is to show all the guests what Maldives has to offer. We have sandbanks, we have dives, we can swim with sharks, we can swim with dolphins, we can see manta rays, we can see bioluminescence also. This is a local island, and we try to do our tools in a way to respect as much as we can the environment that we have around. For example, North Shark, most of the companies who do this tour, they do it in their daytime and they feed the animals. They throw fish to the sharks to come, but we refuse to do that. We go at sunset time. This is because the North Shark is a night animal. Normally they sleep during the day and they wake up at sunset. So we go at that time of the day not to interfere with the natural beer rhythm of the animal and also we don’t feed them because we don’t want to create dependency on human activity. Like this we are creating like the cats of the sea. So we let them go about their life. Maybe our tour is not as spectacular as the other ones. If you are looking for this picture for Instagram with 100 sharks around you is not, but you will have like 20, 30 sharks around. It’s adrenaline enough and you will do it in a way that you feel that you are respecting the place where you are.
-You have a special program for the crew also.
Well, we tried to do many activities with the staff here, and that’s one of the reasons because the staff want to work here with us. Here they feel like they have a life after work. This is something that we try to do with the workers here is to have, I wouldn’t say weekly activity, but it depends on the month. But we try to give them things to do, not only working in the hotel. For example, this week we had a contest to do a handcraft with sustainable materials and they did a wonderful job. I was really surprised when I saw the pieces that they did because they really put a lot of effort, a lot of interest and it’s also good to them. We create a team spirit between them and it’s very fun for them and also for us. We can do really nice things. I think the handcraft that they did, they will be here like little pieces of art of our staff here in the hotel. But also for example, I don’t know, in the Indian National Day or Sri Lanka National Day, we try to do a special activity where the people that we have working here from this country can explain to the others why it’s so important that they for them a little bit about the history of the country, a little bit about the culture. So this is what we try to do here and the people really like. Think that normally in the resort the workers go from the room to the work, from the work to the room. Here, because we are on a local island, they have more space, more freedom. They can go on the day off to the cafe of the villa. The villa is very small, but you have a coffee, you have football, you so they enjoy being here on the island.
Tell us about innovations in the hotel!
Well, our sustainability has like four key points. The first one is the material for the construction, the bamboo. The second one is water because even though Maldives 99% of the country is water, sweet water is like a terrestrial here. It’s a very precious material. So we produce our own sweet water. We have a desalination plant with an osmosis inverse system. So we took all the salt from the sea, then we remineralized the water to be good for human conception. The second point that we take in attention with the water is we collect water from the rain. And this is the water that you can find in showers, in toilets, etc. It’s drinkable, so if you’re washing your teeth and you swallow a little bit, no problem at all. But we recommend not to drink liters of this water. And also about the dirty waters in the hotel. All the water from the toilet, we have also a plant to clean this kind of water and then we used to irrigate our garden here. So we try to reuse as much of the water that we use in the hotel. And also energy was very important for us. We produce our own energy with solar power. We have all the roofs in the hotel covered with solar panels. We are not yet 100% sufficient, but we are almost there. We need some more roofs to put in some more panels. But our goal is to be 100% outsufficient regarding energy and also the way that we trade all the waste here in the hotel, all the garbage. With the organic waste, we have a machine to compost it, and in 48 hours, approximately, we also have fertilizers for the gardens. And non-organic rubbish, we compact it, so it’s very easy to transport outside the island. And the last point that we have in attention was the relation with the community. Thinadhoo is a local island. That means that we share our island with a local community.
In our case, it’s a very small community. It’s only 40 locals living on the island and we try to collaborate with them as much as possible. For example, we help them to build their football camp on the island. We helped conceal a very nice program, which is here all called Cool the School(?). We try to put air conditions in all the schools in the atoll for the kids to have better study conditions. So we try to help the community a lot. Normally when we do a check with our guests. I will explain a little bit about this, but I don’t say too much about the community. What I challenge the guests is have a look around and when you check out you tell me what you thought because normally what I used to think is that the way that we treat our employees and the community is the way that we treat our clients.
Photos: Ecoboo
