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ABOUT US

About the Alfa Leisureplex Group


The Alfa Leisureplex Group encompasses Alfa Travel, Alfa Coaches and Leisureplex Hotels. We are an employee owned business with family core values, with the customer focus and entrepreneurial spirit that were present when the business was established in 1980’s, still at our core today. Being employee owned means that we are fully focused on providing our employee owners with meaningful, secure and long lasting careers and this also ensures our guests have a memorable holiday, characterised by exceptional levels of customer service.

Employing over 650 employees in over 30 locations across the UK, providing our guests with a memorable holiday experience is our mission. Operating from over 480 local pick up points across England, Scotland and Wales, our fleet of luxury Mercedes Benz coaches take our customers to our Leisureplex and carefully selected partner hotels, to enjoy a holiday experience, inclusive of breakfast, dinner, excursions to local places of interest and evening entertainment. We also operate a range of self drive breaks for our guests who prefer to make their own way to resort.

OUR HISTORY


The Group was started in 1984 when Tony and Peter Sawbridge created a hotel business catering mainly for clients on coach holidays. Funds for the venture were provided by Tony and Peter and their four siblings and so Leisureplex was founded. In spring 1984, Leisureplex bought its first hotel, the Hydro Hotel in Llandudno, which remains the one of the Group's iconic flagship hotels to this day.
By 1989, the group had 5 hotels from the Eliot in Newquay to the Selborne Hotel in Dunoon and in 1990, Alfa Travel was established to organise coach holidays to the hotels and initially only from North West England. After a number of years of using selected partner coach operators, in 1996 Alfa Coaches was formed to provide our own fleet of luxury coaches.
Over the years, Alfa has extended its operating areas by creating new programmes, initially in the North East (1997), then the South East (1999), and Midlands (2003). In 2016, a new Yorkshire and Humberside operation was created with improved services in West and South Yorkshire and departures from Humberside and Lincolnshire for the first time.
By 2015, the Group owned 21 hotels across the UK and the family decided to sell a majority share of their ownership to an Employee Ownership Trust, operated for the benefit of the employees.
In 2020, David Urquhart Travel joined the group, to offer departures from across Scotland and in 2021 Alfa launched its South Wales and South West programme, making the Group's holidays accessible across the vast majority of England, Scotland and Wales.

The Leisureplex Hotel network expanded to 24 locations in 2023 when the Norfolk Royale, Bournemouth, the Waverley Casle Hotel, Melrose Scotland and the Royal Hotel, Weymouth were bought.

In 2023 David Urquhart Travel took the next step in its journey and became Alfa Travel Scotland.

MEET THE TEAM


The ALG board is made up of four Executive Directors and one Non-Executive Director. The board is responsible for the day to day running off the business and work closely with Board of Trustee Directors who are responsible for acting in the best interests of the Group’s Employee owners.


Executive Board of Directors

Emma Russell
Managing Director

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David Howard
Operations Director Hotel Division

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Sean Keeley
People Services Director

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Karen Sawbridge
Non-Executive Director

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Our Mission

Our mission is:

To exceed our customers’ expectations in providing a memorable, high quality holiday experience characterised by professional standards of service and a warm and friendly welcome.

We believe we will achieve those objectives by adhering to a number of core values:
  • Ensuring we stay focussed on the needs of our clients and continue to deliver a memorable holiday and hotel experience for our clients we try to always be polite, friendly and attentive and to spread a little happiness!
  • Ensuring our staff gain personal fulfilment from the work they have chosen we work as a team, are supportive of one another, celebrate success and try to maintain a workplace where everyone feels a sense of personal effectiveness
  • Ensuring we maintain an appropriate financial structure which permits sufficient scope to develop the business our employee owned structure and supportive lenders gives us a stable financial structure which is rare among our competitors
  • Achieving an adequate rate of return on our assets to ensure the long term stability of the business we are commercially focused but within an extended perspective which means we are prepared to take a long term attitude to investment operating in a socially and environmentally responsible way
  • We work hard to minimise our carbon footprint, production of waste and energy consumption and invest in the development of our staff steadily growing our businesses without prejudicing the other objectives
  • We constantly look for better ways to save costs, improve the way we use resources and are meticulous in maintaining our equipment and property
  • Encouraging other businesses to explore the benefits of being an employee owned enterprise we are always ready to provide advice and encouragement to other enterprises considering a move to employee ownership
  • Communicating in an open and honest manner with both our customers and our colleagues when we make mistakes we are ready to admit them and use them to improve. We are always ready to learn from others and to offer advice in a supportive way
  • Continuously improving the quality of our services to the benefit of our customers we are constantly looking for ways to improve, encouraging suggestions and supporting and developing new ideas

OUR PRINCIPLES

Purpose

The purpose of the Alfa Leisureplex Employee Ownership Trust is:

  • To provide a stable base to make the group companies successful
  • To enable the employee owners to keep control of their own destiny
  • To have a participative work environment
  • To enable the employee owners to share in the profits they help create.
  • Because the Group is owned in trust for its members, they share the responsibilities of ownership as well as its rewards.

Power

Power in the Group is shared between two governing authorities: the Board of Directors of Alfa Leisureplex Group Ltd (the ‘Main Board’) who are responsible for all matters concerning the operation of the group and the Board of Directors of Alfa Leisureplex Trustees Ltd (the ‘Trust Board’) who are responsible for ownership matters.

Profit

The Group aims to make sufficient profit from its trading operations to sustain itself in the long term, to enable it to grow and to distribute a share of those profits each year to its members.

Members

Employees become qualified to vote for their Employee Trustees after six months of service and they enjoy a Partnership Bonus based on their earnings in the previous tax year. The Group aims to employ people of ability and integrity who are committed to working together and to supporting its Principles. Relationships are based on mutual respect and courtesy, with as much equality between its members as differences of responsibility permit. The Group aims to recognise individual contributions and reward them fairly.

Customers

We aim to deal honestly with our customers and secure their loyalty and trust by providing outstanding service and value.

Business Relationships

We conduct all our business relationships with integrity and courtesy and are scrupulous in honouring every business agreement.

The Community

We aim to be constructive partners in the communities in which we are based.

Our Environment


We encourage our employee owners to be environmentally responsible and introduce environmentally friendly policies and technologies wherever possible.

The purpose of the Alfa Leisureplex Employee Ownership Trust is:


  • To provide a stable base to make the Group successful
  • To enable the employee owners to keep control of their own destiny
  • To have a participate work environment
  • To enable the employee owners to share in the profits they help create.

Because the Group is owned in trust for its employees, they share the responsibilities of ownership as well as its rewards.


Our Customers

We aim to deal honestly with our customers and secure their loyalty and trust by providing outstanding service and value.


Our Suppliers

We conduct all our business relationships with integrity and courtesy. We have built mutually beneficial long term business relationships with a number of suppliers to ensure our guests are provided with the best quality products and service at an affordable price.


Our Employees

Our employees are also our shareholders. They enjoy a Partnership Bonus based on their earnings in the previous tax year and elect employee trustees to represent their interests. We aim to employ people of ability and integrity who are committed to working together and to supporting its Principles. Relationships are based on mutual respect and courtesy, with as much equality between its members as differences of responsibility permit. We aim to recognise individual contributions and reward them fairly.


Our Communities

We care about he communities in which we operate, providing sustainable employment for the local community.

We encourage our employees to fundraise for our employee nominated charity, Cancer Research UK.

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