Meliá Hotels International unveiled its new hotel openings at FIT 2024

In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Hernán Parra, Commercial Director for the Southern Cone at Meliá Hotels International

What are your expectations of being here at FIT 2024 and what are you specifically coming to present?

For us, the exhibition at FIT 2024 is extremely important because it consolidates the year that we are almost closing. For Meliá Hotel International, the Argentine market share is one of the most important in Latin America, therefore we have a distribution network through our sales channels that are the established hard operation, and that is why Meliá's presence here serves to highlight the products that we already have operating successfully, as well as the new openings. 

How has the year been for you so far? 

Overall, the market in Latin America has performed quite well. In Argentina, we are on target, with a 7% year-on-year growth in sales. And while it is true that it has been a difficult year for everyone and different from the point of view of Argentina's exchange rate policies, we have had a fairly good year.

As for the rest of the region, our audience spans from the US down, where we are also in positive numbers. We are happy to be able to have such a share in the region with all our properties in both the Dominican Caribbean and the Mexican Caribbean, and that makes the Latin American market continue to be very important for our properties.

What's new in store for the network in the coming months?

We are reinforcing and presenting very strongly at the fair our concepts in the luxury area, our Paradisus brand hotels.

Paradisus, the company's luxury brand, is present in both the Dominican and Mexican Caribbeans. These are five-star hotels with superior attributes, such as an exclusive area for families and a concept for adults over 18 years of age, which is focused on all passengers who are looking for something special, to have an upsell of quality service. Both concepts include Destination Inclusive, which has been a success for our company. 

Destination Inclusive is about taking our guests out of the luxury of the hotel and bringing them to live a unique experience outside the hotel, a kind of sensory experience. That has brought us a lot of success, we have reinforced it a lot.

And on the other hand, new openings, we are super proud to announce that on December 15th we will open our new brand in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, which is the Zel brand, of Spanish origin, and in alliance with Rafael Nadal, the tennis player. This takes us to a super Mediterranean concept in search of something very organic, sustainable and with special characteristics. It is a new concept within our portfolio.

In addition, the Mexican Caribbean is opening a new hotel called Casa Maya, which is located in a hotel zone, but in one of the areas with the best beaches in Cancun. It is a Meliá brand hotel that offers us a very good alternative in a five-star all-inclusive and that changes the concept of our participation in the Cancun market, where we only had Paradisus Cancun and today we will enjoy Meliá Casa Maya on December 5.

What features, number of rooms and details can you give us? 

In general terms, I can announce that there are more than 200 rooms, and that we are located in a very specific beach area that allows us to have a concept that is extremely important for Latin Americans. It is a hotel focused on families and everyone is welcome. We will also have an adults-only restaurant. That is all I can say for now.