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| "Belgian travel
agents proclaim RIU 'Leisure Hotel Chain of the Year' for 2002" |
2/12/2002 |
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The Spanish company receives the prize awarded by
the votes of Belgian tourism professionals
Through a survey system, Belgian travel agents have decided that RIU
Hotels & Resorts is "Leisure Hotel Chain of the Year
2002". The news was made public last month at the grand Belgian
tourism gala.
The Spanish chain has therefore received the coveted "Leisure Hotel
Chain of the Year" award, proclaiming it number one in the world in
its specialist area.
For five years now the specialist "Travel Magazine" has
organised the annual Belgian tourism prize-giving evening. This year it
included the novel creation of the "Leisure Hotel Chain of the
Year" award category, won by RIU.
The awarding of this prize by the travel agents themselves reflects just
how well-established the RIU brand is in the Belgian outbound market,
where the chain has a great deal of prestige and a growing clientele.
This prize was awarded six months after Swiss travel agents, for their
part, declared RIU the "best chain in the world" and awarded
it the Travel Star prize in the gold category, the highest possible.
Previously Dutch travel agents had named RIU "best chain in the
world" for two years running.
RIU Hotels & Resorts (www.riu.com) currently has 97 hotels in 11
countries and 13,000 employees, who attend to one and a half million
guests a year.
This November the chain was named the winner of the Spanish Prince
Felipe prize for business excellence, in the "tourist company"
category.
In October the chain managed to classify 18 hotels amongst the 100 best
holiday establishments in the world that won TUI-Holly prizes.
A few weeks before, the tour operator Apple had given 8 Golden Awards to
establishments owned by the chain in the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Created in 1953 in Playa de Palma, Majorca, as a small family business,
RIU Hotels is currently the 34th largest chain in the world and the
third largest in Spain as far as turnover is concerned. Next month the
company will be half a century old.
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