The hospitality industry spends considerable energy discussing what guests want. Roy Peires has spent four decades demonstrating what hospitality can do — for the people it employs, for the communities it operates in, and for the families that need it most.
As founder of the IDILIQ Group, Peires built a business on the Costa del Sol that expanded to include hotels and resorts in Tenerife and a real estate portfolio that became the foundation for one of the region’s most sustained corporate philanthropy programs. The IDILIQ Foundation and the Kind Holidays initiative together represent a model of purpose-driven leadership that Peires has made replicable, documented, and openly available to the industry.
Building With Intention From the Start
Peires founded what would become the IDILIQ Group in the 1980s. Charitable giving began before the organization had a formal structure to support it. The first beneficiary was Cudeca, the Costa del Sol palliative care charity that provides free, specialized support to patients in advanced stages of terminal cancer. Peires’ donation of Cudeca’s hospice reception came early — a signal of how he understood the relationship between a business and the community sustaining it.
That philosophy scaled alongside the business. As the IDILIQ Group grew, so did the scope of its giving. The IDILIQ Foundation formalized what had long been practiced informally, and the investments that followed were substantial and specific: €1,600,000 for the construction of the F. Cruz Dias-ADIMI Care Centre in Mijas, which now serves more than 500 people with cognitive and developmental disabilities. Vehicles purchased for palliative care home teams. Computer classrooms fully equipped for organizations supporting individuals with disabilities. Annual fundraising events across multiple properties in support of children’s welfare charities.
Leadership That Extends Beyond the Balance Sheet
What distinguishes Peires’ approach is not the scale of individual donations but the sustained, multi-decade commitment to relationships. His support of Christel House — an international education charity building schools in under-resourced communities — has continued for more than 20 years. His partnerships with organizations like Afesol, the AECC, Casa Ronald McDonald, and Cudeca are not one-time contributions but ongoing operating relationships.
This consistency matters in the context of reputation and leadership. A single large donation communicates generosity. Twenty years of structured, deepening commitment communicates values — and values, in both business and leadership, are demonstrated through choices made repeatedly over time.
Peires has been explicit about this distinction. The Kind Holidays program was not designed as a headline initiative. It was designed as a template — one that other hoteliers, airlines, restaurants, and hospitality operators could adapt and implement with the resources they already have. The framework is documented at www.kindholidays.com, where charity partners seeking accommodation are also listed for operators willing to participate.
The Effect on People Who Do the Work
One of the outcomes Peires observed — and did not anticipate at scale — was the effect of the Kind Holidays program on IDILIQ’s own team members. Within 18 months of bringing a dozen new charity partners into the program, the positive effects were visible not only in the families receiving holidays, but in the staff facilitating them.
This is consistent with a growing body of research on purpose-driven workplace cultures, but Peires observed it firsthand. The insight informed how he talks about the program to other operators: the benefit of giving space to a family in crisis is not limited to that family. It extends to everyone involved in making that stay possible.
A Standard for What Comes Next
Peires has articulated a vision that reaches beyond IDILIQ’s own properties. He has called on fellow hoteliers to review the Kind Holidays model and encouraged individuals who travel regularly to contact their preferred hotels and raise awareness of the program. His aim is that Kind Holidays becomes a sector-wide standard — a baseline expectation rather than an exceptional practice.
More than 2,300 people have benefited from the program since its inception. The F. Cruz Dias-ADIMI Care Centre has served more than 500 individuals. These are not projections or ambitions — they are documented outcomes of a leadership philosophy that has been applied consistently, across decades, in a specific place, by a specific person.
That specificity is the point. Purpose-driven leadership is not a framework adopted in good times and set aside under pressure. It is a practice — built gradually, sustained deliberately, and measured in the lives it changes.
About Roy Peires
Roy Peires is the founder of the IDILIQ Group, which operates hotels and resorts on the Costa del Sol and in Tenerife. He established the IDILIQ Foundation to formalize the group’s charitable commitments, which span palliative care, disability services, mental health, cancer research, child welfare, and international education. The Kind Holidays initiative, launched through the foundation, has provided free accommodation to more than 2,300 individuals and offers a publicly available framework for hospitality operators at www.kindholidays.com.
