Marriott International's The Luxury Collection is making food, beverage, and culinary heritage central to its Caribbean and Latin America expansion, using epicurean programming to differentiate its growing portfolio of 14 regional properties—including three adults-only all-inclusive resorts—in an increasingly competitive luxury segment.
The F&B Angle
Each property in the brand's Caribbean cluster anchors its guest experience to a specific local food or drink tradition. At Colony Club, a Luxury Collection Resort in Barbados, the flagship beverage feature is the Rum Vault—described as Barbados' first boutique rum tasting room—housing more than 150 rums alongside expert-led tastings and curated culinary pairings. The offering transforms a traditional amenity into an immersive spirits education experience, a format increasingly popular in luxury resort beverage programming.
At Sanctuary Cap Cana, a Luxury Collection Resort in the Dominican Republic—the brand's first all-inclusive property—culinary programming centers on the island's agricultural identity. Experiences focus on cacao, coffee, coconut, and sugar cane, connecting guests directly to Dominican Republic farming traditions. For hospitality operators, this kind of ingredient-to-table storytelling signals where luxury all-inclusive food and beverage is heading: away from buffet volume and toward provenance-led, small-format tastings.
Immersive Culinary Programming
Almare, a Luxury Collection Resort on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, takes a hands-on approach to culinary programming. Guests participate in Tikin Xic fish preparation—a traditional Mayan cooking technique—and guided mezcal tastings, weaving regional craft spirits and indigenous cooking methods into the resort's daily rhythm. The property's Alma Spa incorporates Mayan-inspired treatments, extending the cultural narrative into wellness. Cuisine throughout the resort highlights regional flavors rather than international defaults, a deliberate repositioning of all-inclusive dining that operators across the hospitality industry are increasingly adopting to justify premium rate structures.
Paraíso de la Bonita, a Luxury Collection Resort on Mexico's Riviera Maya, rounds out the all-inclusive trio with a thalassotherapy spa and refined restaurant concepts. Its signature wellness ritual—the Temazcal, led by a local shaman—blends herbal infusions and heat in a ceremony rooted in ancient Mesoamerican tradition. Though wellness-oriented, the herbal and botanical components place it squarely in the experiential F&B conversation that is reshaping how luxury resorts think about non-dining touchpoints.
What It Means for Operators
For the broader hospitality and foodservice industry, The Luxury Collection's Caribbean positioning reflects a larger structural shift: luxury all-inclusive is no longer a volume play. Operators who can authentically embed local culinary identity—through named dishes, named spirits, named producers, and named cultural practices—are building a defensible guest experience that commodity pricing cannot easily undercut. The model also has direct implications for food and beverage sourcing, staffing, and training, since programming like rum vault curation and traditional fish preparation requires specialized knowledge and local supplier relationships well beyond standard resort F&B operations.
The brand's 14-property Caribbean and Latin America footprint, accessible through Marriott Bonvoy's loyalty ecosystem, positions The Luxury Collection to capture high-spend travelers who increasingly expect culinary authenticity as a baseline rather than a differentiator. Industry professionals tracking luxury hospitality food and beverage trends will find the brand's regional strategy a useful case study in how global hotel groups are restructuring resort dining and beverage to command premium positioning.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
