Sol Meliá, leader hotel chain in Spain: 40th anniversary
The Company will reach 210 hotels this year.
The history of Sol Meliá goes back to 1956, when Gabriel Escarrer -the company's President- began the operation of a small hotel with 60 rooms in Palma de Mallorca (Balearic Islands - Spain).
Since that year, Sol Meliá development has been one of Spain's more interesting business growth processes: strong growth in the Balearic Islands through capital re-investment; expansion to the Iberian peninsula started in 1976 with the acquisition of Hotasa; penetration into urban areas in 1984 with the acquisition of Hotasa; beginning of internationalization in 1985 with the Meliá Bali hotel; acquisition of the Meliá chain of hotels in 1987; and strong development in the American continent, where it already was present, as from 1988.
In 1993, Sol Meliá increased its operations in Europe with two hotels in Portugal and the penetration into Germany through the Sol Inn brand. As from that time, severas European countries have seen the company's constant growth.
Presently, Sol Meliá is absolute leader in the Spanish hotel ranking in vacationing and urban stays offer; it is third in Europe and is among the 20 main sectorial companies worldwide.
It has a total of 185 hotels all over the world, envisaging 210+ by the end of 1996, then reaching almost 53,000 rooms. lts hotels are present in Europe, America, North Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific, through the brands Meliá Hoteles, Sol Hoteles and Paradisus. This way, Sol Meliá is positioned as one of the companies with higher diversification of offer, specialized in all different segments of demand and of the market.
Sol Meliá´s aggregate sales in 1995 amounted to 1,000 million US dollars; the forecast for 1996 surpasses 1,100 million US dollars. The hotel chain will employ 19,000 people this year. In 1995 it invested 4,500 million pesetas in modernisation of the hotel chain and its services and in professional retraining to improve client service.
Sol Meliá was the first hotel company in Spain and in Europe to obtain the UNE-EN ISO 9002 certification, granted by
Aenor, for Management of Hotel Services in the operation of the hotels of all its brands.
Within the own characteristics contributing to its success we can highlight its solid know-how of hotel technology -which obtained the Award "Príncipe Felipe" to Excellence in Business for the company in 1994; the propietary SolRes cornputerized bookings service; a worldwide sales network with 21 offices in 12 countries; and the benefits enjoyed by its clients through the MaS fidelization programme, the first of its kind in the Spanish hotel sector, with 200,000 members.
Its near future plans for internacional expansion include the opening of 40 new hotels in Gerrnany in the next five years. Another of the most ambitious projects of the company is the penetration of the UK, Belgium, France and Italy. In September, 1995, the company already had five hotels in France.
In the last two years, Sol Meliá has incorporated into its chain of hotels a mean figure of 25-30 hotels and expects to continue this rate of growth in the following years.
Besides this, the objective of the chain of hotels in Latin America is to consolidate the present position of absolute leadership as first Spanish-speaking chain of hotels. Its objective in Asia at mediurn term is to become one of the more significant companies, both as regards quality and volume, and to double the number of hotels -presently, 11- in the two next years.
