How to Book a Private Villa or Hotel Buyout for Your Group

For a milestone birthday, a wedding, a family reunion or a corporate retreat, nothing compares to having an entire villa estate, or an entire hotel, to yourselves. A buyout turns a property into a private home for your group, with exclusive use of the pools, the dining, the staff and the grounds. It is the most seamless way to travel together at the highest level, and arranging one well takes an advisor who knows which properties do it best. Here is how a buyout works, and how we handle it for you.

A buyout means reserving a property, or a self-contained part of one, for your group alone. There are three common forms. A private villa or estate, often with multiple bedrooms, a pool and dedicated staff, is the simplest, ideal for a single family or a small group. A villa cluster or a wing lets a larger group take several adjacent villas with shared space. And a full-hotel buyout gives you an entire property, every room, restaurant and facility, for the duration, the ultimate in privacy and control for a wedding or a large celebration.

Buyouts suit any occasion where the group is the point: a landmark birthday or anniversary, a multi-generational reunion, a wedding where you want the whole party under one roof, or a corporate retreat where privacy and focus matter. The advantage is total: no other guests, a property programmed around your schedule, menus and experiences designed for your group, and a level of service that simply is not possible in a shared hotel.

Most properties set a minimum, either a number of nights, a number of rooms, or a total spend, and the best dates book a year or more ahead, especially over holidays and in high season. The process is straightforward with the right advisor: we match your group, budget and dates to the properties that do buyouts well, confirm terms and minimums, and coordinate the details, from room assignments and dining to transfers, activities and any private events. You deal with us, and we deal with the property.

Some of the properties we arrange buyouts at are among the most storied in the world, from the desert suites and tented pavilions of Amangiri in Utah and the villas of Amanzoe in Greece to the château estates of Airelles in France. For a corporate group specifically, see our guide to planning a luxury corporate retreat, and for larger groups, how luxury group travel works.