Twenty-five years is a long time to watch an industry change. Saro Spadaro has spent most of that time not just watching — but steering.
As President and CEO of The Maho Group in Sint Maarten,Saro Spadaro has built something worth studying: a business model that ties luxury resorts, residential communities, and tailored services into a single coherent operation. Bocconi University gave him the strategic foundation. The Caribbean gave him the real education.
Now, artificial intelligence is giving the entire industry something to think about.
The Digital Shift Happening Right Now
Spadaro doesn’t treat AI as a buzzword. He treats it as structural — something that changes how hospitality businesses are built, not just how they run day-to-day.
Guest expectations have moved. Travellers want personalised experiences, faster answers, and frictionless service from the moment they start researching a trip. That pressure lands first on digital platforms — and Saro Spadaro is direct about what that means: hospitality companies need online environments that are genuinely usable, not just functional.
Language-based technologies are already shifting this. Guests can explore options, understand services, and make decisions more easily when the tools actually help them think. But — and Spadaro is careful here — implementation matters. Data protection isn’t optional. Neither is making sure the benefit lands clearly with the user, not just the operator.
The Part Technology Can’t Touch
Here’s where Saro Spadaro’s thinking gets interesting.
For all his enthusiasm about operational technology, he’s unambiguous about one thing: AI cannot replace the personal connection that defines a great guest experience. Full stop. The goal isn’t automation for its own sake — it’s using technology to make people better at their jobs. More consistent. More attentive. Less distracted by tasks that don’t require a human touch.
That distinction matters. A lot of hospitality brands miss it entirely.
What This Looks Like in Practice
At The Maho Group, the operational improvements are already running. Predictive maintenance catches problems before guests encounter them. Smarter inventory management smooths out food and beverage operations. Energy use and cleaning processes are optimised — which reduces costs and supports a more sustainable business model at the same time.
None of it is visible to guests. That’s the point.
Leadership Tested by a Category 5 Hurricane
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma hit Sint Maarten with winds exceeding 185 mph. Saro Spadaro stayed.
While others evacuated, he coordinated the response on the ground — managing evacuations, then overseeing the rebuild. That decision said something about his leadership philosophy that no strategic framework quite captures. Presence. Decisiveness. The understanding that in genuinely difficult situations, authority without proximity means very little.
It’s the kind of moment that either defines a leader or exposes them. For Saro Spadaro, it did the former.
Where The Maho Group Goes From Here
The international footprint is expanding. And Saro Spadaro’s direction hasn’t shifted — innovation, sustainability, and people, treated as parts of the same vision rather than competing priorities.
His central conviction is straightforward: alignment between what you say, what you plan, and what you actually do is what separates resilient organisations from fragile ones.
In an industry being reshaped faster than most, that’s not a small thing to get right.
