You are Eugenio Ferrín-Esquivel, general manager of Caribia Mar, the 412-room flagship of a family-owned resort chain on the Caribbean coast. Your published rates have never been higher, yet revenue has not moved in fifteen months. On July 6 you hand the chief executive your plan for the next eighteen months, and its first page has to say what has really changed in your demand.
The situation
It is Monday, June 22, 2026. The chief financial officer has already fixed the numbers your plan must reconcile to: revenue of US$55.3 million by the end of 2027 (2025's US$51.2 million plus 8%), an EBITDA margin of 23.6% against today's 22.4%, and a capital envelope of US$4.8 million, of which 1.8 is already committed to renovating the rooms. The chief executive, Mercedes Caraballo de Ferrán, will read the plan line by line and ask whether each commitment follows from the one before.
Capacity has not changed: 412 rooms in 2019 and 412 in 2025. Almost everything else has. The median booking arrived 84 days ahead in 2019 and arrives 31 days ahead now; 28% land inside the final seven days. Guests from the United States are up 12 points of arrivals and Europeans down 11. The average stay is 4.1 nights, and variable cost per occupied room is up 23% in nominal terms.
Online travel agencies sell 41% of room nights and your own website 17%. A direct booking nets US$300 a night, lasts 5.2 nights and comes back 38% of the time; an agency booking nets US$256, lasts 3.6 nights and comes back 14% of the time. Your leadership team has four different explanations for the same numbers, and each director defends their own.