About Us
About Us
Our journeys in the hotel industry are how we met 7 years ago.
Both working for a large hotel management company in the US in various upper-level management roles, we established a great friendship and recognized we had many of the same interests - a love for travel, adventure, hospitality, great food and drink, and seeing the world! We started several years ago traveling on an annual girl’s trip with a few close friends and together have visited Panama, Galapagos, and many locations in Ecuador. On our journey to the Galapagos, we fell in love with South America and came up with this crazy idea – “imagine if we owned our own place and could live here permanently!” And that was the start of the adventure that led to purchasing The Palms – now Palms Oasis Montanita.
We planned a scouting trip and traveled much of the coast of Ecuador.
Thinking we knew where we wanted to be we were just not finding our location until we decided to give Montanita a chance – it hadn’t been on our list. Instantly we fell in love. The activity and excitement, the people, the town, the beach – this was our place. However – we knew we would not be happy living in the center of it all, so we took a random drive around town and found the El Tigrillo neighborhood. Quiet, serene, green, peaceful, but only a 5 min walk from the beach and town. We found a for sale sign and knocked on the door and what opened was literally paradise – Palms Oasis. We were hooked immediately and that day we changed the remainder of our trip to stay there and started the purchasing process. The rest is history.
Now we work to immerse ourselves in the Montanita community and create an Oasis for visitors from around the world. We want everyone to experience the culture and beauty of Ecuador and hope to be your paradise while you do.
Meet The Owners
Pia Sanders
I have been in the Hospitality Industry for over 20 years with the last 7+ of those years being task force where I’ve had the pleasure of working at various properties in various cities throughout the US and Canada. I started my career as a Travel Agent in Sweden which is how I caught the travel bug! I then became a Destination Management Consultant where I was able to develop a deep understanding of travel and tourism – the importance, the impact, and the joy of it. Over the years I have been able to experience many amazing things in this industry like hosting the Swedish Olympic Swim Team in Clearwater, Florida.
I’m originally from Sweden and moved to Los Angeles CA 30 years ago. Since then I’ve made a couple of stints elsewhere, Oregon, Ft. Lauderdale, Clearwater/Tampa but made it back to my soul city Los Angeles about 12 years ago.
My background is F&B and I really enjoy a good hoppy IPA or a nice full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon but my happy place is Ecuador where I can hop on a boat and go deep sea fishing every day of the year. Always looking for a good sporting event to watch as well!
I am thrilled to now call Ecuador home and look forward to spending all of my future years in this paradise.
Melissa Oliver
From upstate NY I started in hotels 18 years ago completely by accident! Prior to that I was a Veterinary Technician, animal cruelty investigator, and ran animal shelters. Finding my way into hotels ended up being my destiny. It uncovered a love for hospitality, travel, and adventure that up until then I had not been exposed to. Since then, my travels have taken me all over the US, Mexico many times, Panama twice, Jamaica, Ireland, Canada, and now Ecuador more times than I can count. On every trip I realized that my end goal was to be in a beautiful, warm Country and own my own little piece of heaven – and that is exactly what I found in Montanita.
Outside of travel I enjoy anything related to animal and animal welfare, experiencing new cultures, event planning and management, and live music of nearly any kind. I look forward to bringing all of my experience with me and making many, many new ones here in Ecuador with the amazing people and this beautiful environment.