Hotel ROC Arenas Doradas renovated for the high season

By Daily Pérez Guillén

The ROC hotel chain started 2024 with good news regarding the properties it manages in Cuba. With a broad vacation portfolio and exclusive offers for different types of guest, the company seeks to consolidate its position in the destination with more rooms, renovated products, a presence in the main tourist resorts and a new project based on luxury rooms.

At the beginning of the high season, sector press visited one of the chain’s hotels in Varadero, the ROC Arenas Doradas, which is owned by the Gran Caribe group. In full operation, we talked with its managers, who showed us all the improvements they have made in the last year for the enjoyment of vacationers.

PIE: Vladimir Martínez Cano, general manager of the hotel and Sheila Álvarez, assistant general manager. Photos: DPG/TTC

“It is a pleasure to have you visit us, to see all the improvements we are making. We have many communal areas: a soccer field, an 18-hole miniature golf course, a basketball, badminton, tennis and petanque court, chess. We have our vast, long, very beautiful beach; our swimming pool; bar on the boulevard; ice cream parlor; the Casa del Campesino restaurant to enjoy typical Cuban food such as caldosa, suckling pig, chicken and tuna sandwiches,” summarized Vladimir Martínez Cano, general manager of the hotel, on inviting us to take a tour of the facilities.

La Casa del Campesino restaurant

Other details were shared by Sheila Álvarez, assistant general manager: “Our hotel, despite the years, has always sought to keep its facilities renovated with a series of investments. We have 316 rooms distributed in bungalows, that is, two-story residential blocks. We offer 13 services to each client, including entertainment.”

In the lobby, a sign highlights the ROC Plus option. “This is a room category that can be requested by guests through tour operators or accessed directly at the hotel front desk. It includes 100 percent-renovated rooms and personalized gastronomic services. More than 40 percent of the hotel accommodation includes this option,” Álvarez explained.

Although the hotel can cater to guests from different markets, most of the hotel’s clients today come from Canada and Russia. “So far the results have been satisfactory. The Russian market has been growing with us through the commercial link with Havanatur,” the assistant general manager added.

Pool at the Hotel Roc Arenas Doradas

She also emphasized that occupancy rates remain above the high average. “We also have a strong rate during the summer, with the domestic market, with which the hotel is very popular.”

The chain also has new developments underway at the Hotel Roc Barlovento, located in Cuba’s main seaside resort of Varadero.

Exteriors of the Hotel Roc Arenas Doradas

“The key to the success of our small but large hotel chain is the professional service of traditional hotels combined with personalized attention. International travel websites endorse guest satisfaction rates; transparency with our professional clients gives us credibility in all our contractual relationships. The growth in repeat business rates is without a doubt Roc Hotels’ calling card,” Margherita Sgroi, commercial director of Roc Hotels in Cuba, told TTC at the beginning of the year, and everything indicates that the chain is continuing along the same path.