Lomas Travel Celebrates Four Decades of Leadership in Hospitality

by Valentín Fuentes
Last updated: 8:45 AM ET, Fri November 8, 2024

Lomas Travel is a critical Mexican hotel consortium in the tourism industry and one of the recently celebrated Cancun Travel Mart 2024 star participants.

This powerful brand has a solid and successful portfolio in various business segments, including travel agencies, loyalty programs and hotels. All this has been consolidated over more than 42 years of presence in the sector by its founders, Dolores López Lira and José Luis López Alday.

Its diverse hotel collection includes El Dorado Royale, El Dorado Casitas Royale, Generations Riviera Maya, El Dorado Maroma, Palafitos-Overwater Bungalows, El Dorado Seaside Suites, El Dorado Seaside Palms, Hidden Beach Resort Au Naturel Club, Nickelodeon Hotel & Resorts Riviera Maya, Maison Mexico Roma and El Cielo Resort, which the Aqua Nick Water Park amusement center joins.

"Lomas Travel started almost 43 years ago as a ground operator: a Destination Management Company, and from there, it grew to other areas such as transportation and ships; there was a time that we had the MAYAir airline, which linked Cozumel, Cancun, Mérida, Villahermosa, we arrived to Tampico and we had plans for Huatulco," Dolores López Lira told TravelPulse.

She says that this giant family consortium, one of the largest in the Mexican Caribbean, began with three rooms and, over time, began its growth thanks to the support of travel agents, without partners or support from any investment fund.

Dolores López Lira explains that one of the great differentiators that has allowed them to grow constantly in the industry is the ability to satisfy their customers.

"We cover a wide range of clients, and our idea has always been that you have to give them more than they think they will receive. We are not the most expensive, although Palafitos, for the concept, and Nickelodeon also, for being thematic, have other types of rates, but I think we are accessible for those who have a dream."

On the other hand, she always tries to convey to the collaborators that the company's customers, tourists, travel agents, or wholesalers must see them as a safety blanket where they feel protected.

The properties of Lomas Travel offer experiences that cater to all customer tastes

She remembers that the idea with Nickelodeon Hotel & Resorts Riviera Maya was to offer guests from Mexico, Central, and South America the opportunity to enjoy a place similar to what they could find in the United States. This country was complicated to travel due to visa problems. In this case, Cancun was strategic due to its excellent international connectivity.

This tourist industry expert assures that the sustainable vocation is another of their strengths since they have always managed under these standards. "When talking about going green, we were already going green, not because of fashion. José Luis installed solar panels and laundry with ozone, for example. Living sustainably, she says, is a saving because switching to LEDs and so on will help us economically. We don't see it as a trend because we have always lived it."

The haute cuisine of the restaurants in the different hotels is another strength that has allowed Grupo Lomas to stay at the top of the industry. "Our CEO, Francisco Gutierrez, is cautious about gastronomy. He brings a background of many years of specializing." She says that, although the cost is often higher, the quality is optimal because they avoid buying frozen fish to buy with the cooperative in the area (network of local fishermen).

The hospitality group's restaurants offer menus with the highest quality cuisine

On the other hand, Dolores López Lira emphasizes that Grupo Lomas carries out an essential strategy of equity and inclusion with a gender perspective, for which, recently, the banking institution HSBC granted them an important recognition for the promotion of female talent in the corporation.

Resilience is Critical to Success

The founders of this tourism giant stress that, in recent times, they have faced major challenges in developing their operations. One of them is the strength of the Mexican currency against the dollar.

"Our income went down 20-30 percent, but all our operating costs, gasoline, wages under the new labor laws, etc., increased 40 percent. We hoteliers have seen it more complicated than usual because of the super peso, inflation and increased costs."

Other significant obstacles the company had to overcome in past years were the H1 N1 epidemic, which hit Mexico, and the Covid-19 pandemic. "At that time, the governor decreed tourism as a basic activity in the state, which helped us not have to close all jobs, and because Mexicans could only travel internally, and the United States still had connectivity with Mexico, Cancun had a spectacular rebound after the pandemic because we took tourism from all over the world," she recalls.

Dolores López Lira adds that, amid the pandemic, "the operator wanted to get our people out and we said our people would not go out. That set us back from investing in a credit for renovation and improvement of properties."

To overcome these industry problems, consider travel agencies a key factor. "Everybody believed that the travel agents were the dinosaurs. The pandemic helped us realize that people need people. The hotel web pages, lines, and areas are excellent, but we can't see everything on one online page." She says that with the pandemic, travel agents renewed and began to communicate more with local people, allowing them to provide a better service to customers who had had a bad experience having made a reservation directly.

Finally, this visionary of the tourism industry expects a winter season with more occupancy and trust that, in 2025, segments of wedding groups and Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) will rebound.

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