How Luxury Resorts Are Transforming into Cultural Destinations

For a week each February, Velaa Private Island in the Maldives is transformed into a cultural hub. In addition to pristine beaches, an impressive wine cellar, and a “village” dedicated to wellness treatments; Velaa adds Heaven on Earth , a world-class ballet event, to its roster of amenities. A 47-villa resort on Noonu Atoll, Velaa already offers plenty of activities to keep even the most Type A of us occupied, but an evening of tutus and pliés may not have been the most obvious item on the calendar of events.

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When it was first launched in 2021, Velaa partnered with principal dancer Julian Mackay, the first American to complete the lower and upper schools at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, for a pandemic-era pivot. “He was also able to convince some of the best ballerinas globally to come to the Maldives for an experimental performance,” says Lisa Jakobsson, Velaa’s director of public relations. “It was an exciting new concept that we hadn’t explored before.”

It was a hit. And Velaa’s been staging a weeklong celebration of ballet every February since, luring the likes of Alena Kovaleva from the Bolshoi Ballet,  Christine Shevchenko from the American Ballet Theater, and renowned dancer Boris Zhurilov to the Indian Ocean.  The intimate setup, where your proximity to big-name ballerinas can almost make you feel like they’re dancing in your living room, has made Ballet Week one of Velaa’s marquee activations. (The resort hosts a slew of themed events during peak season, including November’s Gastronomy Month where a small army of chefs with Michelin-starred restaurants cook on the island.)

Resorts recognize that today’s travelers are increasingly interested in adding more to their vacations. Yes, they love to indulge in poolsize cocktails and spend hours in the spa, but “guests are also looking for opportunities to engage with the local culture, art, and community,” says Peter Roth, regional vice president of Madinat Jumeirah , the 100-acre Dubai resort where Art Dubai unfolds every March.  “By offering such unique events, we meet this demand and position our resort as a destination that offers the best of both worlds: luxury relaxation and cultural enrichment.”

During Art Dubai, Madinat Jumeirah becomes a hotbed for creativity; a variety of installations, exhibitions, and creative displays lure nearly 35,000 visitors (from serious art collectors to families looking for something to do) to the resort. In fact, as hotels and resorts all over the world continue to invest in their artsy bona fides, hosting glitzy art events is becoming more common: Scorpios , in both Mykonos and Bodrum, launched Encounters last year as did Baha Mar with Fuze Art Fair , which aims to celebrate Caribbean art during its October event. These may not be as large-scale as 20-year-old Art Dubai, but they’re proving to be just as alluring: Scorpios’ Encounters, which allows attendees to access pieces before they go on sale, secured a performance from Chinese-Canadian AI artist Sougwen 愫君 Chung at the Bodrum property this month.

Like with Heaven on Earth in the Maldives, performance-based initiatives are proving to be quite the draw, too. Mallorca’s tony Cap Rocat has been staging its own classical music event called Festival Cap Rocat since 2021. Last month, opera superstars Jonas Kaufmann and Sondra Radvanovsky performed Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo.

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Newer still is Pangkor Laut ’s Opera in Paradise , which the luxury Malaysian island resort introduced last October with a weekend of world-class performances from the likes of Pavarotti-collaborator Andrea Griminelli and Michael Austin, one of the very few African-American tenors to play the role of Othello. Griminelli will return to Pangkor Laut for the event’s 2024 edition next month, where he will be joined by Cathy-Di Zhang, and John Longmuir, Laura Wright, who once sang for the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The lush, tropical setting provided by a Southeast Asian island may not be the most obvious place to hear the rising scales of an aria, but according to Dato Mark Yeoh, the executive director of YTL Hotels, Opera in Paradise transforms the resort, adding an uplifting aura to the weekend. “The presence of opera attendees has introduced a distinct vibrancy throughout the property,” he adds.
And perhaps that’s what makes these events so popular right now: it adds an unmistakable buzz to a resort that might otherwise be a little too relaxing.

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