The Ibizan businessman Diego CalvoCEO and co-founder of Concept Hotel Group, has been recognized as Executive of the Year in the Hospitality Innovation Award at the Smart Travel News Awards. Calvo recogió el galardón la noche del miércoles.
“The Smart Travel News Awards 2024 are a recognition of innovation and leadership in the travel industry. Through various categories, we reward companies, destinations and professionals who are leading the transformation of the industry. From hotel sustainability to tourism technology, we seek to recognize projects that add value and generate impact in the sector. Our jury, made up of experts of great authority, guarantees impartiality and quality in the selection and awarding process,” the organization explains.
Diego Calvo founded Concept Hotels in 2013 with Tallyn Planells. The company achieved rapid growth with the openings of the Santos, Tropicana, Cubanito, Dorado, Paradiso Ibiza Art Hotel and Romeo’s hotels a year at a time .
OD Hotels, a turning point
Following the entry of Marc Rahola Matutes ‘ investment fund as a partner and the integration of Concept Hotel Group into the OD Hotels management platform without losing its independence as a brand, Concept has added the Gran Paradiso to its portfolio, an operation that was in the pipeline before the alliance, and took a leap forward with the opening of the Mongibello, a much larger hotel than all the previous ones and owned by an investment fund, which requires greater financial solvency and requires greater demands and professionalism in the operation. Mongibello is the brand with which the company hopes to expand in the vacation segment outside Ibiza.
Last year Los Felices opened and Acapulco, a new hotel in the Portmany Bay area, is scheduled to open in 2025.
In transit to the present day and curiously, the company abandoned the management of its first hotel, the Santos, with the idea of moving the concept to another location, a plan that, however, has not yet materialized.
Diego Calvo, “the father of the product”.
In an interview in La Voz de Ibiza, OD Group CEO and co-owner of Concept Hotel Group, Marc Rahola Matutes, called Diego Calvo “father of the product”.
“Concept Hotel Group is not an investee, it is a purchase. We see it as part of the OD Group ecosystem, a brand within a structure in which there is an investment platform and a management platform, a financial, administrative, IT, IT model, a reportinginvestment and modeling. The implementation of this model has made it possible to carry out projects such as the Mongibello o Los Felices. Estábamos en hoteles más pequeños y ahora se ha podido pasar a gran formato. Without a professionalization work you can hardly compete. The same happens with Los Felices, a project of the Ocean Group Capital fund. It is within that scheme. What happens is that there is a part of it that is the front-office that we want to promote with a figure who is the father of the product, who watches over it, who is my partner and friend Diego (Calvo). We should not think of it in terms of black and white: it is gray. E e are in a moment, with an unbeatable relationship, we are living a moment like all relationships, very romantic, very good, and at the same time we are in crisis, in a remodeling crisis. It is like the shell of a lobster: as they grow, they have to mutate. That is to say: as you grow, the shell you had before is no longer valid”.
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