Following a landmark year, which included the launch of the Olympic Academy Course and the neighbouring Hills Course, the luxury Greek resort of Costa Navarino opens for its 2023 season next week, with a host of other new openings and facility upgrades.
From February 20, the destination will be ready to welcome players of all levels to the ‘World’s Best Emerging Golf Destination’, as recognised at the 2022 World Golf Awards.
The Westin Resort Costa Navarino – the ideal family and sports destination – will open on February 19, along with the Mouratoglou Tennis Centre as of March. The lifestyle resort W Costa Navarino will re-open its doors on April 5, while the The Romanos, a Luxury Collection Resort, will welcome its guests from April 13.
The buzzing open marketplace, Navarino Agora, will also make its debut in April, while a new Watersports Hub will further add to Costa Navarino’s diverse offering. On the gastronomy front, more than 15 new venues are set to elevate the dining experience across the destination.
Finally, summer 2023 marks the highly anticipated Greek debut of Mandarin Oriental – one of the world’s most admired hotel brands – at Costa Navarino, adding to and complementing the existing premium hospitality offering. The beachfront luxury hotel will feature 99 guest rooms, including 48 villas, all with outdoor terraces and sea views, along with five restaurants and bars and a 1,500 m2 spa and fitness centre with a 25m indoor-outdoor pool. It will be located amidst a 140-hectare natural landscape at Navarino Bay, already home to the 18-hole signature Bay Course, with sweeping views across the historic bay of Navarino.
NEW RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY
This year will see the residential community of Costa Navarino Residences grow, as Navarino Dunes welcomes the first owners of Rolling Greens – the neighborhood which sold out within just a year since its launch in 2020 – alongside the residents of the Sea Dunes and Olive Grove neighborhoods. In addition, Costa Navarino Residences will also present its new residential project in the Navarino Dunes resort area, Valley Greens, which features a range of two-bedroom semi-detached villas through to four-bedroom detached villas, based on the ‘turn-key’ model.
SUSTAINABILITY DRIVE
Costa Navarino will further enhance its sustainable credentials in 2023 by adopting a number of new initiatives on the golf courses. As well as reducing the total grassed area that needs to be irrigated on the Bay and Dunes courses by five and ten per cent respectively, through further use of native plants and recycled olive tree wood branches, the destination is promoting a plastic-free philosophy across all its golf venues, by eliminating the use of all plastic bottles on and off the course.
This comes as a natural step, following the destination’s partnership with WWF Greece, with the aim to limit single-use plastics across its resorts and operations. Another key target set by Costa Navarino is to achieve carbon neutrality for the GHG emissions resulting from the activities of the facilities by 2030, through – among others – direct emissions reduction and on-site energy production from renewables.
NEW FLIGHT CONNECTION BETWEEN ATHENS AND KALAMATA
Olympic Air – subsidiary of Aegean Airlines – will connect Kalamata to Athens International Airport four times a week from May 19, opening multiple international connections with the Star Alliance and Aegean Airlines network.
Additional new routes include weekly flights by Aegean Airlines from May 15 connecting Tel-Aviv to Kalamata, and weekly flights from Nantes, operated by Volotea, starting on May 30.
Kalamata International Airport, located just 40 minutes’ drive from Costa Navarino, will welcome its first flight of the season on February 19 from Munich, followed by Stockholm and Copenhagen on February 25, all operated by Aegean Airlines.