ALHI celebrates as the longest established and leading worldwide independent global sales organization specifically serving the North American Meetings & Incentive marketplace.
ORLANDO, FL. – Associated Luxury Hotels International (ALHI) is celebrating a significant milestone: 30 years of Global Sales Organization (GSO) service in North America. Impressively, ALHI is the longest established and leading worldwide independent Global Sales Organization specifically serving the North American Meetings, Convention & Incentive marketplace. ALHI is led by CEO David Gabri and President Jim Schultenover, two highly respected supporters of the meetings and hospitality industry.
David Gabri, CEO of ALHI.
Over the past 30 years ALHI has grown its portfolio of AAA Four- and Five-Diamond/Forbes (Mobil) Four- and Five-Star quality hotels and resorts. Beginning in 1986 with just 14 hotels and resorts, the dues-based “Associated” Luxury Hotels was launched as a means for independent luxury-level hotels and resorts that specifically focus on the Meetings & Incentive (M&I) marketplace to face growing major chain competition. To address the needs of Accounts and the M&I marketplace, ALHI has strategically expanded its scope and exclusive Membership over the past 30 years and now provides authorized GSO sales support for its distinguished portfolio of more than 250 luxury-level, M&I-focused hotels and resorts around the world.
Jim Schultenover, President ALHI.
Significantly, Gabri was one of original collaborators and architects of the Associated Luxury Hotels concept when he spearheaded the initial meeting in 1986 that launched the organization with its founder John Metcalfe. At the time Gabri was Executive Vice President and partner of Buena Vista Hospitality Group, a hotel and resort management company which included the 841-room Buena Vista Palace at Walt Disney World Village in its portfolio. That hotel became an original ALHI member and was the site of the company’s launching and kick-off meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Gabri served several terms as a volunteer Member-Chairman for the Executive Advisory Committee of ALHI, and later acquired ALHI in 2003 from founder John Metcalfe. Prior to taking over the reins of ALHI, Gabri was Executive Vice President of Tishman Hotel Corporation where he served for 14 years as an asset manager, and where he had select hotel and resort assets of their portfolio in the ALHI membership.
ALHI started in 1986 with one Sales Office in Washington, D.C. in order to provide meeting professionals and association executives with reliable sales services for its new portfolio of hotels and resorts. The organization greatly expanded over the past 30 years with its growing worldwide membership and offices established across North America to serve executives and planning professionals in each region. ALHI now has 20 professionally staffed GSO sales offices situated coast-to-coast in America and Canada, with locations in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Louisville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Richmond, Southern California (3), Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Washington (state). Appropriately, ALHI now has its worldwide headquarters in Orlando, Florida, where it was first launched.
From its initial humble beginning where John Metcalfe and his wife Anne fueled the start-up, ALHI now features over 60 Global Sales professionals to serve the Association and Corporate M&I marketplace across North America.
In addition to adding Member hotels and resorts within the U.S. to address demand, ALHI has been a leader in expanding its portfolio with luxury-level hotels, resorts and venues around the world. In 2010, to address specific needs and desires by meeting professionals, ALHI launched Luxury Brand Segments to make it easy for planners to identify properties that will suit their individual programs’ unique desires and specific needs. That year ALHI introduced 10 distinctive Luxury Brand Segments: ALHI Big Box Solutions, ALHI Level 5 Collection, ALHI Passport Collection, ALHI City Solutions, ALHI Golf Collection, ALHI Beach & Island Collection, ALHI Entertainment & Gaming Collection, ALHI U-200 Gems, ALHI Historic Collection, and ALHI Mountain Collection.
In 2013, ALHI further expanded its portfolio with the addition of the ALHI Ocean Line Collection, which are luxury-level cruise ships, suitable for M&I programs as an additional option for planners. That Alliance relationship has expanded to 23 luxury-level cruise ship options, where ALHI now provides GSO sales services for an impressive variety of Norwegian Cruise Line, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Oceania Cruises ships set for the M&I markets, in order to best serve and maintain Accounts with a significant number of cruise solutions around the world for those special programs and charters.
That same year ALHI significantly grew its Caribbean portfolio, and now offers the largest collection of AAA Four- and Five-Diamond-quality M&I resorts in the Bahamas, Bermuda and Caribbean region, with 26 resorts in 12 countries and territories. With these additions ALHI added the “ALHI Bahamas, Bermuda & Caribbean Collection” to its Luxury Brand Segment options.
To address the significant growth of its worldwide hotel and resort membership and its growing client base and demand for its GSO services, ALHI also expanded its executive leadership team in 2013 with the addition of Schultenover as President. He joined ALHI with over 30 years of hospitality industry sales and marketing experience, including serving as President of Krisam Group (KG) for nine years. Prior to that he served as Chief Marketing Officer for Ian Schrager Hotels, and as Vice President, Sales & Marketing for six years for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company LLC.
In 2014 ALHI increased its Global Sales services further to support the requirements of the Accounts being served, to also include an Alliance with Global DMC Partners and their portfolio of qualified Destination Management Companies (DMCs) in over 100 destinations worldwide.
Impressively, the ALHI worldwide portfolio now features more than 115,000 rooms and 10 million square feet of function space, and the ALHI portfolio now offers more than 100 international luxury-level hotel and resort options in 44 countries, besides those throughout America to serve their Accounts with international responsibilities and interests. Collectively ALHI is prepared to assist Accounts with their programs in the United States plus over 90 other countries worldwide.
Consistent with its original direction, ALHI is a Member dues-funded Global Sales Organization, funded by the worldwide Membership, so there is no cost to the planning organization to utilize ALHI’s GSO sales services and expertise. ALHI provides to planning professionals one-call access for its entire distinguished portfolio of hotels, resorts and M&I venue resources, via its local GSO professionals throughout the United States and Canada.
ALHI’s experienced and knowledgeable GSO professionals (with 20 staffers with 10 or more years of ALHI tenure) offer valuable expertise and market intelligence, along with ease of discussing viable options that are best for the Accounts’ programs, and as truly effective Account advocates. ALHI helps Accounts best achieve their objectives and budgets, with unique venues, vital insights, and responsible sales service to enhance the ease and success of their programs.
ALHI’s Global Sales professionals are very active and committed members of the meetings, association and hospitality industries. Gabri, for example, was honored by ASAE with its most prestigious “Academy of Leaders Award,” which is ASAE’s highest individual honor given to an industry partner who has demonstrated exemplary support of ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership and the entire Association community. He was the sole recipient of the award in 2010, and was just the 23rd recipient to ever receive the honor. He also was tapped in 2010 as a member of ASAE’s prestigious “Power of A Committee,” created to heighten the association industry’s visibility with key outside audiences like Congress, the Administration and the media. Gabri also is a Past Chairman of the Meeting Professionals International MPI Foundation Board of Trustees, and served as a member of the International Board of Directors (IBOD) for Meeting Professionals International. He has also served as an Executive Committee officer of the SITE International Foundation Board of Trustees.
“Thanks goes to our incredible Member Hotels & Resorts, and to the fabulous people who enabled ALHI to serve their Associations and Companies with our portfolio over the past three decades,” said Gabri. “Hats off to John Metcalfe, too, the founder of ALHI, who established our associated collection of meeting-focused properties initially, and served the marketplace with integrity and a strong passion for service, ultimately finding solutions for our Accounts with our extraordinary Member Hotels & Resorts. We are truly humbled to reach this milestone 30th Anniversary and to be the longest established and leading Global Sales Organization for independent owned and operated hotels and resorts in the luxury M&I sector.”
“We value our very talented staff and we appreciate the market confidence, responsibility and trust provided by our Members and Accounts. We eagerly look forward to this next decade by continuing to showcase our amazing collection of hotels and resorts as the best solutions for successful meetings, and to provide the most professional, informative, and effective GSO sales service in North America for the M.I.C.E. marketplace,” said Gabri.
Schultenover added, “We are grateful of all of our valued clients, Members and the remarkable ALHI team for making it a terrific 30-year journey. We look forward to continuing to provide our dedicated services to them in the future, and love to show why our Team and portfolio can make meetings and incentive programs so special.”
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