Latino-Targeted Discount Club Will Try Again

Retail

by Deborah Belgum

Pueblo Corp., a Century City-based company that was selling an affinity card to Latino consumers in Southern California, last week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Citing the slow economy and the effects of Sept. 11, the two-year-old company has laid off nearly 300 employees. It is looking to secure new financing from investor groups in the U.S. and Mexico.

Three years ago Pueblo Corp. started selling the $35 membership card, called La Llave del Pueblo (The Key to the Town). Spokesman Ray Durazo said the 8,000 current card members are still able to use their cards for discounts and services at participating merchants.

“Given the current economic situation, giving people discounts has ceased to be an attractive way of marketing,” said Durazo. He said too many retailers and companies are selling goods and services at a discount.

“I don’t think they were visible enough to the consumer,” said Felipe Korzenny, founder of Hispanic & Asian Marketing Communication Research Inc. in Belmont, Calif. “They marketed themselves by word of mouth and telemarketing but you never saw a lot of them on the television or heard them on the radio.”

Privately held parent company IFS Financial Corp., doing business as Pueblo Holdings and headed by Chairman and Chief Executive Hugo Pimienta, was not included in the bankruptcy filing.

Hotel California

The tourism and travel industry probably won’t recover fully until 2004, according to the consensus of analysts attending the Americas Lodging Investment Summit that wrapped up last week at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel at Hollywood & Highland. The hotel industry will have a rough go this year, but next year will be slightly better. Some of the hardest hit cities will be San Francisco, New York and Honolulu. Los Angeles comes off a little better.

The two-day conference was held at a hotel that has been doing relatively well. The 637-room Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, which opened Dec. 26, was 60 percent full in January and expects an 85 to 90 percent occupancy rate in February and a 70 to 80 percent occupancy rate in March, said Tom Santora, director of marketing.

The place will be packed right before the Academy Awards, being held at the nearby Kodak Theatre on March 24.

Tidbits

Signs of life at the soon-to-open Grove at Farmers Market. Nordstrom Inc., one of the main anchors at the shopping center being developed by Caruso Affiliated Partners, has named Kandice Dolkart as store manager. Dolkart began working for Nordstrom 15 years ago as a salesperson at the Topanga Plaza store

Bill Hall has taken over as general manager of the Century Plaza, a Westin hotel, filling a vacancy when Ken Pilgrim was transferred to be general manager at The Westin Long Beach

Staff reporter Deborah Belgum can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 228 or at

[email protected].