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Snö Hotels expands its portfolio with the purchase of Candanchú hotel

Published: Jul 1, 2024

Snö Hotels has become even bigger with the recent purchase of Hotel Candanchú, a historic establishment with 90 years of history, which has been controlled for the last four decades by the Navarre brothers Javier and Alfredo Landa Marco.

In this way Snö Hotels consolidates its presence in the main ski resorts in Spain with the control, either in ownership or management, of a dozen hotel establishments after a rapid expansion in recent years.

The sale of Hotel Candanchú also closes a period of family management of this establishment.

In this case due to a desire to retire. Alfredo and Javier Landa are 71 and 67 years old respectively, according to diariodenavarra.es.

Although originally from a town in Navarra, both are closely linked to San Sebastian, where they studied and lived. Javier Landa studied Tourism and Alfredo, Business Technician. The former started working as the hotel manager in 1978, and in 1981 he bought the establishment with his brother, who had just finished his degree.

The brothers bought it from Bernardo Beristain and María Arzak. This family belonged to the Ski Club Tolosano, the club that inaugurated this hotel in 1934. According to Diario de Navarra, Landa explained that

"It became the first hotel dedicated to skiing in Spain when there were still no ski lifts in the resort".

The Ski Club Tolosano, who was the owner and who had promoted it, decided after the civil war to sell the hotel to seven of the families, very fond of skiing, who were part of this club. Finally, one of these, the Beristain Arzak family, kept the accommodation and it was she who later sold it to the Landa brothers in 1981. The lack of heirs who wanted to take over the business was the reason why the family wanted to get rid of the hotel.

Since then, these two Navarrese men have been the visible faces of this hotel, which has a restaurant, bar and 46 rooms. As Javier Landa points out, out of the 90 years of the hotel's life, he has spent 46 years in it, more than half of its history.

Since 1934

The Hotel Candanchú, located on the mountain of the same name, when it opened in 1934, became the first hotel in Spain dedicated to the sport of skiing at that time. Javier Landa recalls to Diario de Navarra that

"Until then, there were mountain hotels, but not dedicated to skiing. And the hotel was built when the resort already existed, which began its life in 1928, but when there was still neither a chairlift nor a ski lift. Skiers went up on foot.

The hotel became an icon all over Spain, everyone who skied here in the forties and fifties had to pass through here. Because the other resorts are more modern, they started in the sixties and seventies. That's why this hotel was the only ski hotel for decades in Spain."

For him and his brother, last year was the last season at the head of an establishment to which they have been linked for more than 40 years. They have said goodbye to this hotel with a particularly good season, at least, longer, more than in previous years.

This is the second takeover of Snö Hotels in the Huesca Pyrenees. While the Hotel Candanchú has done it by purchase, in the case of the Aragon Hills in Formigal it was after an agreement with Mazabi, who took it a year ago.

Snö Hotels started controlling its first hotel in Boí Taull, and from there it has been expanding to other ski resorts such as Formigal, Cerler, Baqueira Beret, Valle del Roncal or Bielsa.