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Home  >  Hyatt  >  Hyatt’s Apple Vacations Purchase Creates Odd Bedfellows
Hyatt

Hyatt’s Apple Vacations Purchase Creates Odd Bedfellows

Kyle Stewart Posted onSeptember 5, 2021September 5, 2021 4 Comments
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Hyatt recently announced the purchase of Apple Leisure Group but has not said much about its plans for Apple Vacations and that creates some odd bedfellows. 


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Hyatt Acquires ALG (Who?)

Hyatt Hotels (NYSE: H) announced its acquisition of Apple Leisure Group (ALG) and its many subsidiaries. Travel agents certainly know ALG but consumers less so. Apple operated some physical travel agency offices whereby consumers could conduct in-person booking appointments, but it was better known to travel agents for its charter and group sales.

The key points Hyatt management noted at the time of the acquisition and in interviews were:

  • Adds 100 premium (and many all-inclusive) resorts
  • Does not change Hyatt’s asset-light approach with an 80% fees-based revenue goal
  • Increases Hyatt’s footprint in key markets across the Caribbean and Europe

What About Apple Vacations?

In the press release, Hyatt didn’t really discuss the myriad of other businesses that were included in the purchase like Apple Vacations, the retail travel agency. The subsidiary has several additional flags, some of which include Funjet, Cheap Caribbean, Southwest Vacations, and United Vacations. Those brands promote ALG-owned properties but also sell hotel stays from other brands that directly compete with Hyatt.

Holiday Inn from Apple Leisure Group
Holiday Inn from Apple Leisure Group

ALG sells flight packages that are operated by a number of charter carriers which puts Hyatt into the air charter business.

Another complicating factor is Hyatt’s tie-ups with American Airlines who has its Vacations unit managed by “VAX” a competitor to ALG. It’s in Hyatt’s best interest to continue to promote its relationship with World of Hyatt and American Airlines Advantage, but it’s also in Hyatt’s benefit to book tickets with Southwest and United in a direct revenue conflict.

Ritz-Carlton by United Vacations
The Ritz-Carlton Cancun (Marriott) offered by United Vacations (ALG owned by Hyatt.)

I reached out to Hyatt early last week for comment on these other brands and products but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Conclusion

Hyatt’s failure to discuss this end of the business suggests that they may not have an interest in retaining it. It’s interesting that Hyatt will both recommend competing brands through ALG, while fighting them for business in the same markets.

What do you think? Will Hyatt maintain ALG’s travel agency businesses? Will Hyatt sell this portion of the business? 

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About Author

Kyle Stewart

Kyle is a freelance travel writer with contributions to Time, the Washington Post, MSNBC, Yahoo!, Reuters, Huffington Post, MapHappy, Live And Lets Fly and many other media outlets. He is also co-founder of Scottandthomas.com, a travel agency that delivers "Travel Personalized." He focuses on using miles and points to provide a premium experience for his wife and daughter. Email: sherpa@thetripsherpa.com

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4 Comments

  1. Ben Reply
    September 5, 2021 at 10:46 am

    It is a bit of a conflict, but is it really much different than ALG’s current setup where they will sell other resort brands on their OTA/Vacation sites?

  2. Mel Reply
    September 6, 2021 at 8:13 am

    “…Apple operated some physical travel agency offices whereby consumers could conduct in-person booking appointments,..” are you sure about this fact?

    Like the previous poster Ben commented, Apple has made the practice of selling competitor’s brands their trademark since day one while they built AM Resorts to compete with those same brands. Nothing new here folks.

    • Kyle Stewart Reply
      September 6, 2021 at 12:12 pm

      At one point they did operate physical locations, but up to the last few years had branding relationships with other travel agencies.

      Here’s the issue with both your comment and Ben’s – it’s not an issue for Apple Leisure Group to sell competing resorts with their own. They had to as they started selling vacations in the 1960s and only bought/opened their first resorts in the mid-2000s. However, Hyatt has not been in the practice of marketing and selling competing resorts from the likes of Marriott, IHG, and smaller regional competitors. That’s the issue, Hyatt owns 100% of ALG now in a $2.7bn all-cash deal. So while it’s been normal practice for ALG and “nothing new here”, for Hyatt who now owns 100% of the company, it is new. Couple that with the fact that Hyatt doesn’t talk about this side of the business AT ALL and I predict we will see even more change on this front.

  3. Brian Cohen Reply
    September 10, 2021 at 3:48 pm

    Did you know that United Vacations was once operated by MLT Vacations — which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines — as recently as 2014?

    I mentioned that bizarre relationship in this “click bait” article from 2015: https://thegate.boardingarea.com/you-wont-believe-what-happened-next-after-how-surprised-i-was-with-these-especially-with-2/

    Talk about odd bedfellows…

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