Romantic Spa Resort Getaways – Arizona Grand New Villas
February 19, 2009 – 1:51 am
New villas cap renovation of Arizona Grand Resort
The travel industry might call it a “staycation” or a “naycation” – a quick, budget- focused getaway close to home.
But Chris and Heather Holm of Ahwatukee said their stay last Saturday in one of Arizona Grand Resort’s new villas was as romantic and luxurious a wedding night as they could have imagined.
The Holms, who married in Chris’s mother’s backyard Saturday morning, walked into a pristine luxury suite filled that was filled with rose petals and had a view overlooking a running brook and golf course. Pristine because the Holms were the first guests to stay in the Arizona Grand Villas, which opened Feb. 1.
Waiting for them in the room were chocolate covered strawberries and sparking cider — neither of the 21-year-olds care much for champagne.
“The whole thing was very nice,” Heather Holm said Sunday. “The view really makes you feel like you are somewhere else.”
Also happy was Chris’s mother, Tammie Holm of Ahwatukee, who gave the Suite Romance Package to the newlyweds. It cost less than $300.
“I checked all around for deals and this was the best I found,” she said. “You would pay at least $500 a night for something like this at another resort.”
All three thought it was great that the couple, who met at Mountain Pointe High School, were the Arizona Grand Villa’s first guests.
“That’s really why we are staying here,” said Chris Holms, who works as an assistant supervisor at a construction warehouse.
The Villas are a new residential part of the Grand and also part of a $52-million face lift for what used to be called the Pointe at South Mountain Resort . Money has also gone into renovating rooms and constructing a new lobby with a restaurant and pro-shop that will open in March.
The expansion began in 2007, about a year after the property was purchased by Grossman Co. Properties, which a decade ago renovated the Arizona Biltmore Resort.
The 100 villas, measuring 980-to-1,380-square-feet square feet, are the expansion’s crown jewels, said Richard Behr, the Grand’s managing director. About 70 percent of them have been sold to private investors, he said.
Some investors will keep them as second or third homes while others will treat them as investments and allow the resort to rent them out to vacationing couples like the Holms. All of the Villas are maintained by the resort and come with privileges including access to the resort’s golf course, hiking trails, mountain bikes, water park and more.
Behr expects many guests at the AAA Four Diamond-rated Grand will come from the Valley this year since convention business is down and out-of-state tourism has dropped off in the weak economy.
“Ahwatukee is a big feeder for us,” Behr said, noting that some of the community’s homes are on resort property.
Behr said about half of the resort’s business last year came from Valley visitors, including people who live as close as Tempe and Chandler. Scottsdale residents also like the resort, he said, and travel down to it because of the seven-acre water park and access to 50 miles of desert trials in South Mountain Park, he said.
Behr said Grand officials expect the trend to continue this year.
He said for many such guests, the resort itself is as important a part of a vacation as the destination – if not more so.
“We live in a world where we shop in warehouses and customer service is a recording,” he said. “Even in this economy people feel they deserve to come to a nice place and reconnect with their family. For kids, staying in a hotel is magical. It’s a chance to experience a lifestyle they don’t normally get to experience.”
Michelle Donati, public affairs supervisor for the Arizona Automobile Association, said the trend Behr has identified is going on statewide.
Other popular resorts for “staycations” include the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass near Ahwatukee and Chandler, Westin Kierland Commons Resort in north Phoenix and The Arizona Biltmore in north central Phoenix. They have packages that give an additional free night to anyone who stays three or four nights, she said.
“The economy hasn’t eliminated the need for people to get away but it is making them stay on budget,” she said.
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