PRESENTING MELIÁ HOTELS INTERNATIONAL
Founded in 1956 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Meliá Hotels International is one of the largest hotel companies in the world and the largest hotel chain in Spain in both resort and city hotels. The company currently operates more than 370 hotels in 43 countries and 4 continents under its brands: Meliá, Gran Meliá, ME by Meliá, Paradisus, Innside by Meliá, TRYP by Wyndham, Sol Hotels and Club Meliá.
Throughout its history, the Company has been involved in a number of merger and acquisition operations with other hotel companies, allowing the company to grow at a startling rate. This evolution and the strategic focus on international growth has allowed Meliá Hotels International to be the first Spanish hotel company with presence in key markets such as China, the Middle East, or the US, as well as maintaining its leadership in traditional markets such as Europe, Latin America or the Caribbean.
In 1996, it was the first Spanish hotel company to be floated on the stock exchange, with the resulting requirement of transparency, regulatory control, and corporate social responsibility. Since then, the company’s focus on maintaining a stable financial position has seen an increase in loyalty among its shareholders and investors.
The company is also a point of reference in the Spanish tourist sector when it comes to Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. Its Global Sustainability Policy formally sets out its commitment to the environment, cultural and social integration and sustainable, responsible growth. Meliá Hotels International is one of the first 100 companies included in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) index, the only “Biosphere Hotel Company” supported by UNESCO, as well as the only company in the sector to be included in the Spanish Stock Exchange index of responsible companies, the FTSE4Good, and to have signed the United Nations Global Compact. It also maintains a strategic alliance with UNICEF for the protection of children, which has become its priority in the social arena, and with other organizations and platforms in defense of integration and employability of young people.
OUR BUSINESS MODEL
The company has developed and implemented a new Organisational and Business Model to facilitate alignment with company strategy and, thanks to more efficient management, the important organic growth the company expects to achieve.
This new model is based on three business areas: Hotels, Asia Pacific, Real Estate and Club Meliá.
These three areas actively cooperate and are also highly complementary in their activities to achieve the company’s strategic challenges: to become a more global company, with growth in the most relevant brands and markets, (especially through management, lease and franchise agreements), with a special focus on Asia and maximising the profitability of its assets.
The coordination of their activities and development allows the chain to offer a wide range of products to clients, thus earning one of the most important assets for any business group: customer loyalty.
The following includes a brief description of the activities in each of the different areas:
Hotels
This area is basically responsible for the operations in the Meliá Hotels International hotels, including all of the hotel brands and the wide range of experiences they offer guests, from the most avant-garde to the most family-oriented, under the Gran Meliá, Meliá, ME by Meliá, Innside by Meliá, TRYP by Wyndham, Sol and Paradisus brands.
The Hotels area has evolved in 2011 towards a hybrid management model by both brand and region, which at the same time ensures the personality of the brand and the efficiency of operations.
Given the large number of hotels in the company portfolio, Meliá Hotels International has also developed four different systems for operating hotels as follows:
Ownership: both the ownership and the management of the property are in the hands of Meliá Hotels International.
Management: the management of the hotel is the responsibility of Meliá Hotels International, but the hotel is owned by a partner with whom the company has agreed conditions for its management services.
Lease: Meliá Hotels International leases facilities to operate a hotel under one of its hotel brand names.
Franchise: Meliá Hotels International cedes the use of one of its brand names for a certain period to a partner so that the partner may operate a hotel under the brand name.
Asia-Pacific
The new Asia-Pacific area was created with the aim of increasing the presence of Meliá Hotels International in the continent while at the same time promoting the role of Asia as a feeder market for company hotels.
To achieve this, Meliá Hotels International has strengthened its sales, distribution and hotel development teams with the creation of a corporate office in Shanghai from which the companys Asia-Pacific strategy will be managed
Real Estate
Real Estate is another basic foundation for the new Meliá Hotels International organisational structure with the dual objective of maximising the profitability of the company’s real estate assets and also using those assets to widen the range of services available to clients.
This area is thus responsible for enhancing the sustainable profitability of company assets, ensuring the quality of the real estate portfolio, optimising the lifecycle of assets, planning medium and long-term investments, promoting and maintaining relationships with partners and real estate investors, and marketing and managing residential developments, shopping malls and golf courses. In order to get the most out of all the catering and sports facilities in hotels, the company has forged a number of strategic alliances with market leaders in each area.
Club Meliá
Club Meliá is the vacation club of Meliá Hotels International, which is one-of-a-kind among Spanish hotel companies. It was created in 2004 with the aim of completing the companys range of holiday products.
Club Meliá guarantees its members one weeks vacation a year, for 50 years. Members purchase a “holiday currency” named Options, which they can swap for annual vacations in a large selection of company hotels or in a network of more than 4,000 affiliated resorts worldwide.
Club Meliá has 27,000 members worldwide.
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
1950s: In 1956 Gabriel Escarrer opened his first hotel in Palma de Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain)
1960s: The company continued to grow in the Balearic Islands (Spain)
1970s: During the ‘70s, Gabriel Escarrer extended his business to other main tourist destinations in Spain
1980s: The company opened in the main Spanish cities. In 1985 its first international hotel opened in Bali.
1990s: Development began in Latin America.
2000s: The company consolidated its presence in the main European cities, while breaking into new markets like the US and China.
2010s: In 2011 the company changed its corporate branding, becoming Meliá Hotels International
