Aruba Renaissance Resort

Sometimes the ingredients are all there, but they’re not readily visible. 

The Aruba Renaissance Resort has a sprawling footprint: 

• Two hotels
• A fully themed RD&E development
• A marina
• A private island

The “problem”? It’s not on the beach.

The Renaissance Aruba team tasked us at IDEAS with creating a unifying design for their resort property. It’s in the heart of Aruba’s commercial district, with multiple hotel, shopping, dining and entertainment offerings.

Our challenge was to create distinctive guest satisfiers that played to the property’s differences from the island’s typical beachfront hotels.

We developed new storywork that infused the island’s Indigenous art forms and culture into the resort’s new identity.

Alongside a complete exterior palette makeover, we undertook a host of new initiatives:

• Developed a new thematic wayfinding and signage system
• Crafted special event and nighttime entertainment concepts
• Created “Blue,” a new featured nighttime guest experience

During the day, Blue is the resort’s terrace pool. But motion lighting, sound design and costuming transform the area into the island’s newest popular outdoor nightclub as the sun sets.

Located two stories up but immediately off the street, guests traveling the district see the activity and are naturally attracted to the nightclub. The result was an improvement in rev-par by almost 15%!

Upon completion, other Marriott/Renaissance hotels and resorts retained us to do similar work.