Quite An Experience

On a bone-chilling morning in Toronto, it was rather pleasant to learn about all of the good things going on at the Metropolitan By COMO in Miami Beach, Florida.

Opened nine months ago, the 74 room and suite property — part of the COMO Hotels and Resorts group — is doing well, with its general manager, Javier Beneyto telling a small travel trade group in Toronto this week, that it took about 13 months to completely restore the 1930s Art Deco property to its present look and feel. And Beneyto has been involved with the property since it was purchased. Bringing in the GM at the beginning of a project, Beneyto said, is an unusual move, however, it reflects the way that COMO operates.

Along with COMO’s Sharon Lee Thony and De’Anne Nunziato, Beneyto was in town to talk to travel agents about the Metropolitan particularly, and about COMO’s product generally.

Thony offered the Toronto event an overview of COMO’s 12 properties, located in destinations such as the Maldives, Bali, Thailand, Bhutan, the Caribbean, London and Miami. And along the way, she made it clear that Canada, and specifically Toronto, was a key market for the privately-held, niche hotel brand.

COMO’s Nunziato pointed out that Canada currently accounts for about 5% of the company’s business, and that’s a figure that COMO wants to see grow. And the current stop in Toronto was directed at meeting with key agencies – as travel agents generate 25% of COMO’s business – as a means of achieving that goal.

Seen in the photo, from l to r, are COMO Hotels and Resorts’ Sharon Lee Thony, PR & marketing director (The Americas); Javier Beneyto, general manager, Metropolitan By COMO in Miami Beach; and De’Anne Nunziato, account director, The Americas.

For more on the Metropolitan By Como in Miami Beach, go to http://www.comohotels.com/metropolitanmiamibeach . For more on Como Hotels and Resorts, visit http://www.comohotels.com .