Associated Luxury Hotels International, which over 40 years has built a reputation as a trusted global sales organization representing independent luxury hotels, cruise lines and destination management companies, has expanded into the world of luxury leisure and business travel.
The new division, ALHI Luxury Leisure and Business Travel, which was announced in late 2025, has begun in earnest with a team of five tenured sales professionals working on behalf of nearly two dozen hotels – and growing – to drive business among the consortia, business travel, luxury wholesale and entertainment segments.
The move comes as ALHI seeks to help hotels grow their luxury business travel volume, which continues to rebound from the 2020 pandemic.
“One of the largest casualties of the pandemic was the loss of the sales talent with deep rooted relationships in the luxury leisure markets for many of our hotels,” said Michael Dominguez, ALHI President and CEO. “It’s clear that developing a luxury leisure division will address their growing need to move incremental share in these high-rated channels. We continue to look at “gaps” that many of our Members are dealing with to effectively sell their guest rooms in the most optimum fashion.”
He said the luxury leisure programming requires a high-touch approach, often time and labor intensive, and ALHI has positioned itself to support the limited on-property teams of its Members as an extension of their sales teams.
ALHI has built a “team of specialists and have found some impressive talent that will help with strategy, relationship development and measured targets that will identify our success in these areas,” Dominguez said. “We believe that relationships are still the cornerstone of our luxury industry and will deliver a high-touch experience.”
The new division is led by Cesar Wurm, Senior Vice President, Member Strategy & Development, and includes Telesa Via, Group Vice President, Mid-Atlantic Region & Leisure Sales, and Barry Kushner, Dina Miller and Allison Sayer as Directors, Global Sales.
As part of the new division, ALHI is also launching its ALHI Insider bimonthly e-newsletter, Luxury Leisure & Business Travel, which will report on timely, topical and engaging issues and trends, destination reports and features on properties within the portfolio.
“We've been very successful and pretty robust in the group space,” Wurm said. “But as we experienced through COVID, hotels need to diversify the segmentation so you become as resilient as possible and adjust to whatever market dynamics are happening. We can supplement them and provide additional resources, intelligence and labor at a fraction of the cost it would require them to have an additional body in-house.”
He added that the expertise his team brings is crucial for Members.
“It’s really hard to find people with that level of expertise,” he said. “We have global sellers, which have an average of 26 years in the industry, so they have very in-depth relationships that can plug and play and really help improve that market performance in this segment.”
The feedback from luxury hotels and resorts, so far, has been positive.
“We have seen a great response and interest in learning more,” Dominguez said. “Each hotel has unique needs whether it be luxury agents, consortia, wholesale, entertainment or business travel. We are learning together and are as nimble as we are with other programming we have launched with ALHI.
“As we are in the ‘luxury’ segment of the leisure efforts, there is an expectation of strong relationship development and what hasn’t changed is the fact that people do business with people they know and trust. This will never change and we have established a 40-year reputation of relationships, trust and a service delivery that has grown a loyal Client community for our Members. At the same time, the division strengthens our commitment to our global Client community, ensuring travel advisers, corporate travel managers, consortia partners and others have a dedicated, highly experienced team focused on delivering strategic insights, meaningful connections and measurable value.”
In addition to helping Members manage labor costs, ALHI’s team provides market-specific intelligence, proven tactics and deep understanding of hotels’ needs. The result, Wurm said, is high-touch engagement through relationships and global sales representation.
“That is really a game changer,” he said. “It's also a little scary because No. 1, we have to deliver. We have to show value, not only for the Members, but to maintain the reputation of ALHI. But I think that's the beauty of our model and the culture because when you're talking internally with the team, it's a culture of inclusivity and collaboration.”
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