Interview: Apple Leisure's CEO on the Future of the Luxury All-Inclusive Vacation
Skift Take
Apple Leisure Group is competing with cruise lines to attract the business of American travelers to Mexico and the Caribbean. Like cruise lines trying to win over first-time cruisers, Apple Leisure Group is attempting to get Americans who have never had a passport before to get off the couch and experience their first foreign vacations.
Alejandro Zozaya became CEO of Apple Leisure Group in late 2012 as Bain Capital invested in the formerly family owned travel wholesaler.
By the fall of 2013, Apple Leisure Group had become a vertically integrated packaged travel and hotel management company, specializing in Mexico and the Caribbean, as it acquired Travel Impressions from American Express and CheapCaribbean.com, adding them to its existing portfolio of Apple Vacations, AMResorts, Amstar and Unlimited Vacation Club.
Skift spoke with Zozaya about the opportunities and challenges of integrating the brands and simultaneously operating as a wholesaler, distributor and hotel management company in Mexico and the Caribbean.
An edited version of the interview follows:
Skift: Apple Leisure Group has been undergoing a transformation after the last couple of years. What did this buying spree do for you?
Alejandro Zozaya: The doubling up of our distribution not only allowed us to be more successful on the resort side with the openings of new in hotels, in addition to the ones that had just opened in 2013 and 2014, but also made us a stronger management company on the hotel side resulting in the signing of more contracts and stronger pipelines.
The hotel side is also growing significantly. It was already growing fast, but after 2012, and in 2014 following the integration of the two distribution companies the number of new hotels for [Travel Impressions and CheapCaribbean.com] grew exponentially.
Now we are an integrated group with four companies on the distribution side: Travel Impressions, Apple Vacations, CheapCaribbean.com and Unlimited Vacation Club. Also on the hotel side with Amstar, we have AMResorts, a destination management company that provides transportation and excursion offerings and in-destination assistance to our own, and the other brands, passengers.
Those companies form what is today Apple Leisure Group, the largest tour operator and distribution company in the United States, as well as the only vertically integrated hospitality company in the country.
Skift: In terms of revenue, what’s the biggest part of the business? Is it the distribution side or the hotel side?
Zozaya: In terms of revenue it’s the distribution side. On the distribution side alone, we have close to $2.5 billion in annual sales.
Skift: So the distribution side is the biggest portion of the business and yet because you operate hotels you’re competing against some of your
