Gabriel Escarrer, CEO of Meliá Hotels International, named “Business Leader of the Year” by Mallorca Business Community (Spain)
- The award is based on the “Calvià Beach” project on the southwest coast of Mallorca
- With 3,800 hotel beds in the area, Meliá achieved significant improvements in the first year of operations
- Extensive presence of business and community leaders in an event which praised the courage of Meliá for investing in the repositioning of a mature tourism destination |
|
Gabriel Escarrer, CEO of Meliá Hotels International, named “Business Leader of the Year” by Mallorca Business Community (Spain)
- The award is based on the “Calvià Beach” project on the southwest coast of Mallorca
- With 3,800 hotel beds in the area, Meliá achieved significant improvements in the first year of operations
- Extensive presence of business and community leaders in an event which praised the courage of Meliá for investing in the repositioning of a mature tourism destination |
Category: Europe - Spain - Exclusive experiences
- Rewards
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2013-05-24
"Our family was part of the emergence of Magaluf as a tourism destination in the 1960s and after consolidating as a company and growing internationally we wanted to show our commitment to repositioning an area of Mallorca which still has extraordinary potential." This is how the Vice Chairman and CEO of Meliá Hotels International, Gabriel Escarrer, began to describe the "Calvià Beach" project undertaken by the hotel company in the southwest coast of Mallorca which has earned him the award of "Business Leader of the Year 2012" from the Gran Empresa Business Club.
As Escarrer explained, the project not only had sentimental objectives, but also clear business goals, given that "the only way to make the destination sustainable over time, generate employment and help extend the tourism season is by making it profitable." The Meliá project worked simultaneously on architectural and landscape reforms, improved beach management, attracting prestigious international leisure and fashion brands, the elimination of obsolete facilities, and the raising of hotel categories to generate a significant increase in prices.
Other achievements in the first summer season 2012 included the creation of over 300 new jobs while maintaining existing positions, an increase of 2% in occupancy and 17% in revenue per available room, and the penetration of new high-potential feeder markets with greater purchasing power than traditional markets. The Meliá Vice Chairman explained the progress underway for 2013 and announced other plans for later years, insisting that, although there is much to be praised about recent achievements, we must still be prudent and take an outlook of 3-5 years to assess the impact of project as a whole.
In particular, Escarrer emphasised the importance of public-private partnerships as being key to such a complex project, especially at a time of difficult access to public and private funding. According to Escarrer, the project would not have been possible without the remarkable openness and collaboration of the regional and municipal authorities, whose declaration of the project as of “Autonomic interest” and involvement in the development of the area provided investors with the legal safeguards and agility required to invest and aspire to profitability.
The President of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Jose Ramon Bauza, presented the award at an event also attended by the Director of Tourism, Carlos Delgado, and Director of the Economy and Competitiveness, Joaquín García, using the moment to praise the Vice Chairman of Meliá, representative of the second generation of the company, and a benchmark in the business community for his merit, experience, and compassion.
|
|
