For six years, the Grand Fiesta Americana in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, catered to guests looking for relaxation and romance — as long as they left the kids at home.
But in 2021, when the property, the sole adults-only all-inclusive resort in town, was acquired by Hilton, its new owners made a hard pivot. What was once a child-free retreat is now the family-friendly Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort, with a kids’ club, a teen zone with pool tables and video games, and activities like face-painting and cooking classes.
The resort is among dozens of properties worldwide that have reinvented themselves since the beginning of the pandemic to appeal to one of the fastest-growing sectors of travelers: families. A July survey by the Family Travel Association found that 85 percent of parents in the United States planned to travel with their children in the next 12 months, and many don’t want to squeeze into a standard double room. Hotels.com reports that searches for properties with cribs are up 65 percent on its site since the beginning of the pandemic; for connecting rooms, they’ve jumped 20 percent. In the face of this demand, many hotels are opting for makeovers, hauling in sleeper sofas, building bunk beds or eliminating no-child policies.
“We knew we needed to make some adjustments, and not just include a kids’ club,” said Mónica Gonzalez, director of sales and marketing for the resort. “So what we did was create a program for the entire family.”
The resort has split up its two towers: One is now for adults only and the other for families. One pool is still reserved for adults, while the other is often packed with preschoolers wearing floats and tweens doing cannonballs. In the family tower, all accommodations can be booked as connecting rooms, and the racy former artwork — like paintings of topless women — has been swapped for G-rated beach scenes.
Since the resort opened to children in November 2021, Ms. Gonzalez said, bookings are 60 percent families.
Going ‘full family’
At Winvian Farm, a luxury resort on 113 acres in Connecticut, children were traditionally allowed on the property only during a handful of designated periods like Labor Day weekend and Christmas Day. That policy went out the window during the pandemic, said the managing director, Heather Smith Winkelmann, when parents, burned out from virtual work and school, began calling and begging for a space for everyone to get away.
“Once the pandemic hit,…
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