Among the great fashion capitals, Milan was an obvious destination for your trendy Me by Melia brand?
Maria Zarraluqui - That's right. In May, we opened a fantastic Me by Melia in Milan, in a completely renovated wing of the Principe da Savoia. This luxury lifestyle brand, with its strong focus on fashion, music and technology, is perfectly suited to a city like Milan, but also to other cities. After Ibiza, Majorca and London, in a building designed by Norman Foster, we will be opening Me hotels in Barcelona, Doha and Dubai, with a hotel designed by Zaha Hadid. Until Paris, I hope...
Does your hotel at La Défense open up the French market to you?
MR Z. - That goes without saying. It's a beautiful flagship store. Our reputation is set to grow even further as we have projects in Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice and Toulouse, as well as at Roissy airport. France is one of our key markets outside Spain. Eventually, we plan to offer around thirty hotels there. More generally, we have 130 hotels in the pipeline worldwide with a strong focus on South East Asia and China. As part of this growth, all our brands have great potential, Melia and Me of course, but also Innside. This business-oriented brand will see some very exciting developments, in Chile as well as in Manchester and, above all, in New York in 2016.
How are you adapting to the 'bleisure' trend?
MR Z. - For example, by training our staff to guide business travellers who only have two or three hours to visit the city. We always give our hotels a leisure componentwhich have a very urban resort feel. This is part of our know-how, since 60 % of our establishments are positioned in the leisure segment. As a result, unlike our competitors, loyal customers of our Melia Rewards programme have many opportunities to redeem their points in leisure hotels. However, we also have very business-like servicessuch as lounges The Level or the programme of meetings Power Meeting.
