The last few years have seen a cosmic shift in the world of Associated Luxury Hotels International.
The leading luxury global hospitality sales organization, known as ALHI, has expanded its range of services well beyond its core mission of providing sales and marketing services to many of the world’s top hotel brands, resorts, cruise ships and destination management companies.
Just within the past few weeks, ALHI had a flurry of announcements including the acquisition of 62ABOVE, a full-service marketing agency. In addition, ALHI has inked agreements with The Optimism Company, founded by renowned author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek, as well as SearchWide Global, Vario and the Aruna Project.
The moves cap a burst of growth for the more than 35-year-old organization, which earlier this year was recognized as one of the Inc. Regional 2024 fastest-growing companies in America-Southwest Region.
“Personally, this is not only exciting but is the execution of the vision when I was blessed to begin this journey with ALHI in July of 2019,” Dominguez said after the acquisition of the marketing agency that will now be known as 62ABOVE Powered by ALHI. “The pandemic delayed the timetable, but to execute on this piece of our growing puzzle is reminder that those pandemic years are truly behind us and the vision is still valuable today.”
Dominguez has set out to infuse a high level of energy and services for ALHI’s membership of more than 250 of the world’s most distinguished, independently operated or owned hotels and resorts, cruise ships and destination management companies within the meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition (MICE) marketplace. By forging partnerships and relationships with more than a dozen organizations and businesses, ALHI has further entrenched itself as a trusted, one-stop shop of resources for Members and clients—the meeting professionals who work with ALHI to drive group meeting business, a key vertical for the hospitality industry.
“As we continue to grow our partners, we continue to evaluate and find specialists in their areas of expertise just as we know our ALHI GSOs (global sales officers) are specialists,” Dominguez said. “We have an incredibly connected and engaged ALHI community on both the Member and client side. The goal was to serve those audiences and fill the gaps where it made sense in order to become an even more valuable resource and partner.”
ALHI’s strategic partners and Member benefits include:
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Delta—special group travel discounts and benefits for meetings and events for over 10+ attendees.
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Leading Authorities Inc. (LAI)—access to speakers for any meeting or event.
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Hosts Global Destination Management Company (DMC)—helps design meetings and events on property and at a destination.
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Boundless—corporate gifting options.
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Maui Jim—offers sunglasses, serving gatherings as small as 50 to groups of thousands.
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Vario—a live event production company providing audio-visual services and production management.
ALHI’s partners include:
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Rudner Law Offices—law services for group sales issues, including contract drafting, negotiating MSAs and addenda, training hotel sales teams, collections and enforcement through arbitration and litigation.
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The Optimism Company—Sinek’s group teaches the human skills required for people to collaborate, communicate and lead better, and offers discounts on services.
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SearchWide Global—a full-service search firm specializing in C-level and director-level executive search firms.
ALHI’s Impact Partners include:
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PACT—Protect All Children from Trafficking (PACT) empowers youth and communities, advocates for policy change and develops partnerships to educate and raise awareness on child human trafficking. ALHI helps by raising awareness and supporting fundraising campaigns.
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Aruna Project—the organization produces athleisure bags and accessories by employing survivors of human trafficking. ALHI helps by raising awareness and purchasing products for events.
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Delos—global wellness leader offers education around meeting health and wellness along with the Delos Certificate for Meetings & Events.
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Evertreen— promotes reforestation, biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development by fostering the growth of local farming jobs for impoverished communities. When planners book an event through ALHI, a tree is planted on their behalf in the ALHI Forest. More than 5,200 trees have been planted in 11 countries so far through the program, resulting in 1,242 tons of CO2 being absorbed and 652 working hours created.
The deal to buy 62ABOVE, which has extensive experience in travel and hospitality, was a major acquisition that enables ALHI to offer access to a full-service marketing agency, providing an additional resource for Member hotels.
"There was an extraordinary synergy and warmth when we met with the ALHI team,” said Indra Gardiner Bowers, Chief Communications Officer at 62ABOVE. “From culture to a love of the hospitality industry, we felt aligned. We related to the small but mighty culture of ALHI. We know we will bring a high level of creative and strategic thinking that ALHI’s Members and clients expect. ALHI’s depth of knowledge, trends and insights in the category, particularly in the meetings space, will certainly be of benefit to our clients.”
With ALHI managing the business from an operations standpoint, the 62ABOVE team will focus on clients and new business, especially as marketing strategies become more critical for Member and client growth.
“Our focus on building out the ‘back of house’ has made us more strategic, targeted and most importantly taken work of the GSO and GSA (global sales assistants) teams’ plates that took them away from our primary responsibility of engaging with our amazing clients,” Dominguez said. “Our build-out of our sales systems, administration, marketing and events has allowed for the complimentary aspects to our sales efforts to be effective and support the GSO teams.”
While ALHI will continue to explore other alliances that are a cultural fit and make sense, Dominguez said both Members and clients have been extremely positive and excited about the partnerships that have evolved.
“The broadness is intentional as the needs are so different depending on the client/member and where they are in their own journey,” he said. “Our impact partners have been extremely popular, specifically PACT and Evertreen.”