The Alpe family’s tourism empire keeps growing, with plans for Jucy Snooze’s first pod hotel overseas.
The Jucy group has signed a joint venture with Los Angeles-based Care Development for a $16 million 226-pod hotel in San Diego due to open in late 2021. More pod hotels are planned in southern California with the same partner and the hotels will operate under the Stay Open brand.
The budget accommodation will feature the same fibre glass and steel sleeping pods as in its Kiwi hotels which are stacked eight to a room along with ensuite rooms.
Jucy opened the country’s first pod hotel in Christchurch in 2016 followed by one in Queenstown and the first Jucy Snooze hotel opened in Auckland this year featuring co-working and meeting spaces for business travellers.
The Jucy Group now boasts 4000 cars and campervans across Australia, New Zealand and the US. It has cruise boats in Milford Sound and three other Jucy Snooze hotels in Queenstown, Christchurch, and Auckland.
The group was started by Tim and Dan Alpe in 2001 with just 35 rental cars and is majority owned by the brothers who each hold a 35% stake. Their parents, Chris and Linda, also each hold a 15% stake.
It is believed the Jucy Group has an annual turnover of more than $50m.
After a five-month pilot trial last year, it has decided to roll out a fleet of electric campervans with 10 vehicles due to be added this year.
California-based Chris kicked off the family tourism tradition when he launched Maui Campervans in the 1980s before selling it to Tourism Holdings.
He is a private equity investor with directorships in a variety of businesses including Kava Investments, where he is a shareholder with fellow NBR Rich Lister David Teece. He also sits on the Jucy board.
The Jucy Group has an initiative where customers can donate $1.20 a day on top of their vehicle hire to offset their carbon footprint, which the company passes on to the Million Metres scheme providing resources to local communities to clean up their waterways through riparian planting.
Staff are also given a donate-a-day off each year to spend a day helping the cause of their choice.
2018: $145 million