Luis Riu Bertran

Luis Riu Bertrán (20 March 1933 – 7 April 1998) was a Spanish hotelier and businessman, co-founder of the RIU Hotels & Resorts chain alongside his father, Juan Riu Masmitjà. In 1953, they purchased the Hotel San Francisco in Playa de Palma, Mallorca. The following year, in 1954, they partnered with the German travel agency Doktor Tigges-Fahrten to organize what contemporary sources describe as Spain’s first charter flight for package tourism.^[1] In 1977 the group constituted Riu Hotels S.A. as a joint company for hotel real-estate investment and construction, with a 51% stake held by the Riu family and 49% by TUI.^[2][3] In 1993 RIU and TUI created the hotel management company RIUSA II, S.A., owned 50:50 by both partners, to manage RIU-branded hotels worldwide.^[4][5] At the time of his death in 1998, the RIU group managed 62 hotels.^[6] In 1993 he received the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Government of Catalonia.^[7]

Riu Bertrán was born in Olot, Girona, on 20 March 1933, the son of Juan Riu Masmitjà (1908–1996) and Maria Bertrán Espigulé.^[8] In 1950 the family emigrated to Venezuela, where father and son managed a small hotel in Barquisimeto before returning to Spain to start their Mallorca venture.^[9] He married Pilar Güell Boada in 1954.^[10]

In 1953, Riu and his father bought the Hotel San Francisco at Playa de Palma, Mallorca, the first property of what would become the RIU chain.^[11] During a trip to Germany in 1954 he met Hubert Tigges of Doktor Tigges-Fahrten; with that operator, the family organized Spain’s first charter flight combining long-haul transport and hotel stays for middle-class German travelers, helping to shape the modern package holiday model in Spain.^[12] The company consolidated its headquarters at the Riu Centre in Playa de Palma in 1982.^[13] In 1993 RIU and TUI created the centralized management company RIUSA II, S.A. —a 50:50 joint venture—to operate RIU-branded hotels; by 1996 Riu Bertrán was serving as managing director while a gradual generational transition placed his son Luis Riu Güell as group president.^{[14][15][16][17]}

RIU’s longstanding commercial relationship with the Tigges agency matured in 1977 into a formal corporate alliance with TUI. That year the partners constituted Riu Hotels S.A. as a dedicated hotel-development and property-investment vehicle whose principal objective was the construction and ownership of new resort hotels. The company’s share capital was divided with 51% held by the Riu family and 49% by TUI.^[18][19]

In 1993 the commercial partners separated asset ownership from hotel operations by creating RIUSA II, S.A., a 50:50 joint venture responsible for the centralized management and operation of RIU-branded hotels worldwide; this operational JV complemented Riu Hotels S.A.’s role as a development and property-holding entity.^[20] Subsequent transactions preserved the original ownership logic of the development vehicle; in 2021 TUI sold its 49% stake in the Riu Hotels property company to the Riu Group, consolidating full family control over the real-estate arm while the 50:50 operational JV continued to manage hotels.^[21]

On 23 December 1988, Riu Bertrán founded the Fundació Joan Riu (Joan Riu Foundation) in Girona, a non-profit devoted to the care and education of people with severe intellectual disabilities; the associated school and residential center had been operating since 1980.^[22][23][24]

In 1993, the Generalitat de Catalunya awarded Riu Bertrán the Creu de Sant Jordi.^[25]

Riu Bertrán died of cancer in Palma de Mallorca on 7 April 1998, aged 65.^[26] At that time, the RIU group managed 62 hotels with 34,770 beds.^[27] Management passed to his children Carmen Riu Güell and Luis Riu Güell

as co-chief executives (consejeros delegados).[28]

A public square in the Platja de Palma area of Palma is named Plaça de Joan i Lluís Riu, after hoteliers Joan Riu Masmitjà and his son Lluís Riu Bertran, founders of RIU Hotels & Resorts.^[29] In December 2001, the city inaugurated at this square the sculpture Benvingut, by Jaume Mir, as a tribute to the pioneers of tourism.^[30]

• RIU Hotels & Resorts
• TUI Group
• Package tour
• Tourism in Spain

• Official website