From staycation getaway to wellness destination
In the spa and resort industries “wellness” is the current buzzword, and Anya Resort Tagaytay has added it to a formula that has already proven successful over its five years of operation.
“The Anya concept from day one was really all about three things,” says Santi Elizalde, president and CEO of the Anya Hospitality Group (AHG) and Roxaco Land Corporation. “Comfortable rooms, great F&B, and then the spa was going to have an important role.”
Comfortable rooms — check. Revisiting Anya after a couple of years I was pleasantly shocked at the beauty of the suites, which embody modern Filipino luxury with their polished wood floors, intricately detailed headboards and Philippine seashell accents. Of course, high-thread-count sheets, a rain-shower bath, and an espresso machine don’t hurt. Not to mention the warm service where every Anya staff member greets you with their hand over their heart.
Anya general manager Mikel Arriet says they’re currently at 100-percent occupancy — the peak of an increase in guest arrivals that started last October.
Great F&B — Anya has two restaurants: Anila by the pool, which serves a buffet breakfast in the morning and all-day comfort food; and Samira by Chele upstairs, an upscale Spanish restaurant that became the venue for the Manuel Quezon dinner on Aug. 19 and will likely host the other 16 presidential dinners as well.
“We had been talking to Chele (Gonzalez) for two years, even prior to the pandemic,” Elizalde admits. “But we were doing all the food tasting in Manila. I had an idea of what we wanted to do working with Chele. He was excited. Tagaytay was a destination that he had been thinking about, but was just waiting for the right opportunity. So we said, ‘Hey, why don’t you join us?’”
Since Chele is based in Manila, Anya executive chef Chris Leaning presides over both Samira and Anila, and makes sure the food they serve is of excellent quality. In fact, he was nice enough to provide me a vegetarian dish during the predominantly meat dinner, and to accommodate the plant-based among us, he and Arriet (who is also a chef) were trying to come up with a vegan version of Anya’s famed chocolate crinkle by the end of the night.
The spa — “During the pandemic, obviously wellness became something people were talking about,” notes Elizalde. “That fit into what we wanted to do with our spa, so we said, ‘Okay, let’s rethink this, come up with a brand, Niyama, and it’s about wellness in general, where the spa is just part of a number of offerings.”
Anya brought in the European Wellness (EW) Villa Medica group from Germany (its Asian head office is in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia), which offers everything from weeklong Immune Boost programs to Clean detoxifying retreats to stem-cell therapy.
“Much cheaper than going to Germany or Switzerland,” says Dr. Ariel Baira, European Wellness’ medical director. “We have some prominent people who have undergone stem checks: former Senator (Juan Ponce) Enrile, at 98 years old, Imelda Marcos, GMA (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo), Joseph Estrada.”
Wellness clients undergo a 15-minute Bio-Med body scan to determine their psycho-emotional state and biological age versus their actual chronological age. If the former is higher, “that means that there are some things happening inside the body that contribute to the faster aging of the cells,” Baira says. “So we try to improve that. The goal is really to make it much younger, lower than the chronologic age.”
This they do through the Clean program, where heavy metals are cleansed from patients’ systems via European technology and intravenous drips that offer immune boosting, metabolism enhancement, plaque therapy for the heart and liver, even luminous skin.
“We’re trying to change the image of an ordinary staycation and promote wellness,” Baira says.
If you’d rather just de-stress at the spa, Niyama has excellent massages like their Signature, which employs heated bamboo sticks to soothe your aches away, or the more traditional hilot, which ends with banana leaves enveloping you in a warm cocoon.
“That now completes the circle,” Elizalde says. “It’s always been part of the Anya concept and Anya brand of what we want to do.”
He says they’re going to be starting their Anya phase three on the other side of the seven-hectare property. “There’s a creek right on the edge —we already have a bridge built. It’s about 1.4 hectares. And the idea is we’re going to be selling a lot and two-bedroom villas on stilts with their own little plunge pool, and we’re going to give the buyers — the villa owners — the opportunity to enroll their units in a rental program. So we will handle the maintenance and renting out of the villas, and there’s going to be a revenue share. It’ll be only 25, 28 units, so it will be very, very open.”
Elizalde is mulling bringing the Anya concept to places like Sagada and Banaue. “These are the sort of destinations that are not next door, but once you’re there, it’s just beautiful,” he says. “Anya is a formula that has obviously worked. So if it ain’t broken, we just want to keep it going.”
* * *
Follow the author on Instagram @theresejamoragarceau and Facebook (Therese Jamora-Garceau).
