RIU Hotels & Resorts is a hotel chain jointly owne by tour operator TUI AG and the Riu family. The business was founded in 1953 by the Riu family when they bought a modest 80-bed hotel in Majorca. The company, in 2007, is Spain's second largest hotel chain with 45,000 beds in 110 hotels in 18 countries. It has 18,000 employees and serves 2.1 million clients per year. There are RIU Hotels in the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, Europe and Africa.