I spent a week at a beach resort well above what I would normally pay, as part of a family occasion. I was curious about what the price bought and I paid attention.
Some of it was genuinely worth the money. Most of it was not, for the way I like to travel, and the distinction turned out to be useful.
What the money genuinely buys
Space, which is the most under-discussed luxury. Fewer people per metre of beach, per lounger, per square metre of pool. That is a real and immediately noticeable difference and it is difficult to obtain any other way.
Staffing ratio. Anything you needed happened quickly and without becoming a process. Over a week that is a meaningful reduction in friction.
Maintenance. Everything worked. Nothing was broken, stained, sticky or improvised. This sounds minor until you compare it against a week where the air conditioning is unreliable.
And quiet, which is partly the space and partly deliberate policy about noise, and which is the thing I would pay for again.
What the money does not buy
The beach, which is the same beach. In many jurisdictions the shore is public and the resort's stretch is distinguished by the loungers on it rather than by the sand or the water.
Food, which was competent, expensive, and less interesting than what was available outside. Resort restaurants cook for a broad international audience and moderate accordingly.
Any sense of where you are. The resort was pleasant and it could have been in six different countries. Nothing about it was local except the staff.
And, specifically, the experiences sold within it, which were the same excursions available outside at a substantial multiple.
The all-inclusive calculation
Worth thinking about properly because the arithmetic is not what it appears.
All-inclusive pricing is good value if you eat and drink everything at the resort, which is what it is designed to encourage.
It is poor value if you want to eat elsewhere, because you have already paid for meals you are not having.
The effect is that it changes behaviour. People who have paid for everything stay in, which is the commercial point, and it means the local economy outside sees very little of the money.
Whether that matters to you is a personal question. It is worth being aware that it is a designed outcome rather than a coincidence.
The staff question
The thing that stayed with me most.
The service was excellent and it was delivered by people working long shifts, frequently living some distance away, in an economy where the resort is one of few employers.
That is not unique to expensive resorts and it is more visible there, because the contrast between the guests' circumstances and the staff's is starker.
Practically, the things worth knowing: whether tips reach the people who served you, which varies enormously and which is worth asking about directly; and whether the resort employs locally, which the better ones do and advertise.
Where the money would have gone further
My honest reallocation of the same budget.
A very good small hotel rather than a resort, at perhaps a third of the price, with the same comfort and a location in a real place.
The difference spent on the things I actually remember from trips — a boat with a good skipper for a day, a guide who knows the area, eating somewhere excellent, and more days.
More days is the big one. The same money buys either a week of resort or two and a half weeks of comfortable independent travel, and the second is a better holiday for me by a wide margin.
When the resort is the right answer
To be fair, there are cases and I understand them better now.
Travelling with small children, where the reduction in logistics is worth an enormous amount and where having everything within a controlled space genuinely changes the week.
Very short trips, where there is no time to work anything out and friction is the enemy.
Anybody who is exhausted and wants to make no decisions for a week, which is a legitimate use of a holiday.
And group occasions, where accommodating a lot of people with different needs in one place is otherwise very difficult.
None of those describe how I usually travel, which is why my conclusion is what it is rather than a general verdict.
The environmental side
Briefly, because it is a genuine consideration rather than a rhetorical one.
Large coastal resorts have significant water and energy demands, frequently in places where fresh water is scarce, and the desalination and pumping involved is not trivial.
Some have taken this seriously and publish what they use. Most say something vague about sustainability and change the towels less often.
The distinction is checkable by asking specific questions rather than reading the leaflet, and the properties doing real work are generally pleased to answer them in detail.