An independent firm for resorts, hotels, golf courses and sports clubs
EROLA Sports & Hospitality advises on and manages resorts, hotels, golf courses and sports clubs across their whole life, for owners, investors, developers and club boards, working alongside the management teams who run them. This is why the firm exists, how it thinks and who does the work.
Why EROLA
Taking care of what matters
EROLA Sports & Hospitality grew out of years running golf, hotel and sports assets in different countries, from day‑to‑day operation to the boardrooms where investment is decided.
From the inside you learn where an asset creates value and where it loses it. It is almost always lost at the same point: when design, investment and positioning are decided without thinking about how the asset will be run. An investment does not end on opening day. That is the day it starts to show whether it was well thought through.
That is why we work with owners and with the teams who run their assets across their whole life cycle: acquisition, planning, development, repositioning, operational improvement and recovery. With independent judgement, and with the responsibility of someone who has signed budgets, opened facilities and led teams.
EROLA is my second surname, my mother’s. She taught me that looking after something important takes dedication and constancy, above all when things get difficult. Behind every asset are people who have put their wealth and their trust into it. That is how we want to treat every mandate: as if it were our own.
We hope EROLA Sports & Hospitality will be known not for what it promises, but for the value it leaves in every asset.
Julián Romaguera, Managing Partner
What we believe
Our manifesto
Services are a consequence. These convictions come first, and every proposal, report and recommendation should be traceable to them.
Better decisions create better assets.
Most of an asset’s value is fixed long before it opens.
A resort, a hotel or a club is an ecosystem, not a collection of services.
We work for the owner and alongside the management team.
Operation must take part before design turns an idea into a permanent cost.
Strategy only counts once it reaches daily operation.
Numbers explain what happened. Operation explains why.
Transparency protects judgement.
Independence is the condition for advising well.
Global vision without local commitment is imitation. Local commitment without global vision is limitation.
How we build the team
One accountable partner. Specialists by mandate.
No single adviser covers every question a resort, a hotel or a club raises. So each mandate brings together the expertise that asset needs, under the Managing Partner, who answers to the client for all of it.
Led by the Managing Partner
Julián Romaguera leads every mandate and remains the client’s single point of accountability, from the first conversation to the last report.
Chosen for the project
Specialists are selected for what the asset needs, never because of a prior commercial relationship.
Paid transparently
Their role and fees are agreed with the client in advance. We take no commissions or incentives from anyone we bring in.
Disciplines we bring in
Golf agronomy
Architecture & engineering
Financial modelling
Legal
Hotel operations
Food & beverage
Technology
Commercial
Leadership
Julián Romaguera
Managing Partner
Julián leads the firm and each of its mandates. Before founding EROLA Sports & Hospitality, he worked inside the kind of assets the firm advises on: Blue Canyon Country Club in Phuket, the five-star Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Golf & Spa Resort in Siem Reap, Riviera Maya Golf Club at Bahia Principe in Mexico and Los Naranjos Golf Club in Marbella, where Los Naranjos Padel Club was developed from day one.
He has been responsible for profit and loss, deployed capital and reported to owners and boards. He has been a general manager and a director of golf himself, which is why we work with management teams, not around them.
Track record
2025 to date
Advisory and asset management
EROLA Sports & Hospitality · Spain
Advisory and asset management for resorts, hotels, golf courses and sports clubs.
Current mandates include two golf clubs, a racket club and a luxury villa portfolio in Spain.
2016 to 2025
General Manager & Asset Lead
Los Naranjos Golf Club and Los Naranjos Padel Club · Marbella, Spain
Full profit and loss responsibility for a championship members’ club. A golf-only business repositioned as a diversified leisure ecosystem across golf, padel, food and beverage, wellness and real estate.
Los Naranjos Padel Club developed from day one, through to opening. More than €6M of investment in sport and hospitality facilities, excluding land, led from investment case to opening; third-party agreements structured to build recurring income. Two 59Club Gold Flag Awards for service.
2014 to 2016
Director of Golf & Real Estate Asset Management
Riviera Maya Golf Club, Bahia Principe · Mexico
Investment and real estate strategy within the luxury hospitality division of Grupo Piñero, taking the golf business to operating breakeven.
Support for the residential phase and feasibility studies and financial models for new golf and real estate development in the Dominican Republic.
Five-star Accor resort with golf, food and beverage, spa and wellness for an international clientele, with revenue growth across golf and food and beverage.
Training across hotel operations, including front office, revenue management and food and beverage, also serving as the resort’s night manager.
2011 to 2013
Operations Manager
Blue Canyon Country Club · Phuket, Thailand
Resort and golf operations across two championship courses and accommodation, with profit and loss accountability across business units.
Education
Qualifications
Hotel Real Estate Investments & Asset Management CertificateCornell University · 2022
Negotiation Mastery CertificateHarvard Business School Online · 2021
Master Certificate in Hospitality ManagementCornell University · 2017 to 2018
Turf Maintenance ManagementAssociation of Golf Managers of Spain
MBA, Golf Club ManagementWebber International University, Florida
Business Management & AdministrationWebber International University, Florida
Recognition
Service measured by others
Two 59Club Gold Flag Awards for service, Los Naranjos Golf Club, 2019 and 2020. Pictured: the 2020 award.
Fees are stated in full. We are paid only by the client who engages us, never through commissions from operators, suppliers or contractors we recommend.
One question
Every recommendation answers what creates more long‑term value for the owner.
Confidential
We name a client only with their permission. What a client shares with us stays with us.
