Face-to-Face: Maria Zarraluqui
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Maria Zarraluqui, Meliá Hotels International’s Global Development Managing Director, provides Travel Daily with the latest updates on the Spanish hotel group’s Asian expansion strategy…
Q) Asia is a key part of Meliá’s expansion global strategy; what are you development targets in the region, and which Asian countries are your main areas of focus?
Indonesia and China are both integral to Meliá’s expansion in the APAC region. Meliá Bali was Meliá’s first overseas hotel and the 30-year history provides a strong foundation as the group looks to expand further in the region.
In addition to Indonesia and China, development targets include further expansion in the countries of Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as targeting new opportunities in countries such as Thailand, Mongolia, and even Australia in the future.
In the APAC region, Meliá Hotels International is driving the development of city hotels, which cater to both business and leisure travellers. 74% of the hotels in Asia will cater to the “bleisure” market. As a comparison, this figure is 44% in the Americas and 29% in cities in Spain and Europe
There are 21 hotels in the pipeline in APAC – six in China and 15 in other countries. The current China pipeline includes the Meliá Hongqiao, Innside Zhengzhou, Gran Meliá Zhengzhou, Meliá Chongqing, Meliá Zhengzhou and Meliá Tianjin.
Q) Which new Meliá brands can Asian travellers expect to see coming to the region in future?
Meliá will be introducing new brands to the Asia Pacific region to cater to both demographic and psychographic travellers in the growing premium and upscale segments. The group’s diversified brand portfolio allows Meliá to target a wide variety of travellers, including business travellers and the new generation of millennial travellers.
New upcoming brands to APAC include Innside – urban hotels in first and second tier APAC cities that are growing in importance – and Sol House, which offers chic and stylish resorts targeting the millennial generation. New Innside hotels in APAC include Innside Zhengzhou and Innside Yogyakata, and the first Sol House in Asia, Sol Hous Bali Legian, will open in March 2017.
To date this year we have had four new signings in APAC, all of which are under the Meliá brand, including Meliá Bintan, Meliá Lombok, Meliá Pekanbaru and Meliá Ho Tram. We will continue to strengthen our urban resort concept by introducing more brands and widening our portfolio in the region to cater to evolving needs of today’s Asian travellers.
Q) India is one gap in your global portfolio; why is that, and do you have any plans to enter India in future?
Meliá is proactively seeking for more partners and expanding operations in new markets in the region. We have many long-term partners in the region and look forward to working closely with them to further expand our global portfolio in the near future.
The expansion and development plan is also about finding the right partners with similar vision. We have many long-term partners in Asia that we have worked with in the last three decades – they are all the leaders in their own expertise. Our partnership is based on mutual trust and respect. We always believe in sustainable growth and quality growth, which also heavily rely on a strong and lasting partnership.
India isn’t in our strategic development plans currently, as we are more focused in other Asian markets and regions, but it could be a possibility to explore in the future.
Q) Which other as-yet-untapped markets are you considering in the region?
Meliá recently opened our first hotel in Myanmar with the new Meliá Yangon and we are looking to continue expanding in the Southeast Asia region. In Thailand, we signed a deal last year with TCC Land Asset World to open three new Meliá properties. We are also looking at opportunities all over the APAC region such as in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, and Japan.
Q) What is Meliá doing to attract domestic and intra-regional travellers in Asia?
We pride ourselves in being able to integrate our core Spanish values and warm hospitality service culture with the local cultures into every aspect of the travellers’ experience and enjoyment. The experiences we talk about are the ones that create emotions. This is the impetus that drives our work between brand and guest experience, and this is what truly distinguishes us from our competitors. Also, the fact of being a family-owned company, makes of Meliá a much more approachable company in which the human touch is key in every situation.
In each country that we operate in, we have embarked on a journey to design a consistent service culture across our brands, all in an effort to activate all guest touch points to deliver a unique and differentiated experience.
The ‘Pengyou by Meliá’ welcome program targets overseas Chinese travellers, providing Chinese comforts in Meliá hotels around the world. In addition, this program provides training for the hotel staff to familiar with Asian and Chinese guests’ requests and preferences.
Q) What key developments are we likely to see from Melia in Asia over the next 12 months?
There are eight scheduled APAC hotel openings in the next 12 months, including properties in China, Indonesia and Vietnam. Properties include Sol Beach House Phu Quoc, Sol House Bali Legian, Meliá Hongqiao, Innside Zhengzhou, Sol House Kuta, Meliá Bandung, Innside Yogyakarta, Meliá Pekanbaru
Meliá is also exploring many great development opportunities throughout the Asia region and we look forward to announcing new property signings in key destinations throughout the next year.
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