EL FINANCIERO “A GIANT CALLED APPLE LEISURE GROUP LANDED IN CAP CANA”

Article repost from El Financiero

By Gustavo Armenta

Without revealing the financial details of the operation, a couple of days ago Apple Leisure Group and Mark Travel concluded their merger that had been announced a month ago. The first is the leader in the sale of all-inclusive vacation packages, and the second is the sub-leader. Thus, we are seeing the union of number one and two, with which a super-powerful company is born that performs something fundamental for the tourism industry: moving travelers.

Every time I see Alejandro Zozaya, it becomes clearer to me why the company he runs: Apple Leisure Group (ALG), has become the tourism giant of Mexico and the Caribbean. He seems unable to sit still, thinks and speaks -in Spanish and English- at a very revolutionary speed, and his spirit is that of a leader who does not stop at what has already been done, who is always thinking about what is going on, who lives in the planes crossing the area of ​​their domains to supervise, plan, imagine, close contracts.

17 years ago he created and started AMResorts (now led by Gonzalo del Peón), the hotel division of ALG. His plans were to open his first hotel in the Dominican Republic and he bought land in Punta Cana, but the terrible S-11 happened and the world changed, tourism also changed its strategy.

However, patient, he waited more than three decades, but finally last year he was able to inaugurate that 160 million dollar property in Punta Cana: the Secrets Cap Cana, although by then they had thirteen hotels in that country. Thus, that would be the first hotel of AMResorts, was born being 14 in the Dominican and 52 of all its inventory.

Today, their numbers impress anyone. With just over fifty hotels, in its six brands (Zoëtry, Secrets, Dreams, Sunscape, Now and Breathless), it brings together twenty thousand rooms in six countries: Mexico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Jamaica and Panama; it has a Vacation Club, which registers 74 thousand members, who assure you more than ten percent of the occupancy in their hotels; each year they sell 500 thousand packages in the United States, passengers that move in their own charters, of which only 25 percent are staying in hotels of AMResorts, which makes them a strong commercial partner of the rest of the hotel chains; and has already finalized its merger with The Mark Travel Corporation, the second company that more all-inclusive vacation packages sells in the United States and is also a technology provider. In this way, they have just created a powerful company that provides tourists to Mexico and the Caribbean, which will be headed by Zozaya.

With this union will move 3.2 million passengers a year, of which around two million are for our country, which is equivalent to almost 20 percent of Americans who come to Mexico and five percent of all foreign tourists who visit us .

Unstoppably ambitious, a few days ago, at the Tourism Tianguis held in Mazatlan, he announced the construction of four more hotels that will be ready in 2020: two in Punta Mita, Nayarit; one in Cancun and the other in Riviera Maya, which will add 1,556 rooms to its inventory.

How far will it go? Wherever you want Alejandro Zozaya does not seem to have a limit with the formula he found to conquer the market in the all-inclusive segment.