Melia Hotels is to play doubles with Rafael Nadal. The Spanish group has just announced a partnership with Rafael Nadal. Spanish and world tennis icon for the launch of the ZEL brand, a new lifestyle chain of resorts and urban 'bleisure' hotels with a Mediterranean identity. " An innovative, energetic brand that will surprise and delight travellers with a new interpretation of well-being and a sustainable business model." said Gabriel Escarrer, CEO of Meliá.
Developed as part of a joint venture between Melia and the multi-titled player at Roland-Garros, ZEL aims to reach around twenty hotels worldwide within five years. That's almost as many Grand Slam titles won by "Rafa".. While the growth plan covers all continents - Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia - the first developments are expected to appear in major European cities initially. Cities such as Paris and LondonAnd in Spain, of course, in Madrid and the seaside resorts along the Mediterranean coast.
As part of this programme, the very first ZEL hotel will open in Majorca in 2023. A scoop that should come as no surprise, given that both the Spanish group and the tennis player were born on the Balearic island. " As a Spaniard, a Mallorcan and an avid traveller, I've been planning for a long time to launch our hotel brand" explained Rafael Nadal. This partnership is reminiscent of a similar association between two famous Madeiran figures, the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and Dionisio Pestana, the founder of the Portuguese hotel group. A one-two punch that gave birth in 2016 to the lifestyle brand Pestana CR7which first appeared in Funchal, Madeira, and today presents in Lisbon and Madrid, as well as Marrakech and New York.
Preparing for the post-career of these renowned sportsmen and women, this idea has also been taken up by another famous Ballon d'Or winner, Lionel Messi. With his legend closely linked to Barcelona, the Argentinian footballer teamed up with the Catalan group Majestic to launch the MIM brand in 2017, a contraction of " Messi i Majestic" . The brand now has six top-of-the-range hotels in leisure destinations such as Sitges, Ibiza and Mallorca on the beach side, Baqueira in the Pyrenees and Andorra on the snow side, with the latest hotel to open this year in Andalusia, the MiM Sotogrande Club Marítimo.
To push its advantage and win its place in the hotel competition, the brand ZEL intends to roll out an integrated Mediterranean lifestyle around gastronomy, well-being and lively open-air spaces, whether rooftops, terraces or beach clubs. In terms of design, in addition to spaces bathed in light, each hotel will have a patio at its heart, a predominant architectural feature across the Mediterranean that encourages encounters. Rafael Nadal has made a promise to travellers: " feeling good at every moment, enjoying life and the way we live it all over the Mediterranean" . A winning serve?
