Already partnered with Rafael Nadal for the joint development of the Zel brand, the Meliá hotel group is welcoming another sports star to its team. From the yellow ball to the round ball, this choice recruit is none other than Lionel Messi. A legacy of his long years at Barça, Barcelona's "more than a club", the Argentine footballer invested in the Spanish hotel industry with the creation of the MiM chain in 2017, as part of an alliance with the Catalan group Majestic Hotel.
The brand now boasts six resorts in Andorra, Baqueira, Ibiza, Sotogrande and Sitges, as well as a hotel on the island of Mallorca, the original home of the Meliá group and the birthplace of Rafael Nadal. These are all top-of-the-range leisure establishments, decorated by renowned designers such as Lázaro Rosa-Violán and Luis Bustamante, all proudly displaying LEED sustainable certification, and three of them in association with Michelin-starred chef Nandu Jubany and his Hincha restaurants. At the same time, the MiM Baqueira ski resort and the seaside hotels in Ibiza, Mallorca and Sitges all have meeting and event spaces for seminars and incentive breaks in the footsteps of the golden ball, the brand's common thread, with reproductions of the trophy of the world's best player in each establishment.
But sporting and hotel careers are what they are, punctuated by transfers and conversions. For example, Lionel Messi's properties will join the ranks of the Meliá Group from 1 January.er This new partnership will enable the MiM chain to expand its field of play thanks to the Spanish group's worldwide distribution strength and its MeliáRewards loyalty programme. For the MiM chain, this new partnership will broaden its playing field thanks to the Spanish group's global reach, backed by its distribution strength and its MeliáRewards loyalty programme.
In return, the Spanish group, which currently has a collection of around twenty hotels with a dozen more to come, is enhancing its offering with boutique hotels bearing the image of the football star.The strength of this new alliance lies in the harmonious combination of the fundamentals of MiM and the Meliá Collection.said Gabriel Escarrer, CEO of Meliá Hotels International. Not only do these brands share the same philosophy, but they both offer a strong proposition to travellers, with the appeal of a global icon like Leo Messi and the experience of a major group like Meliá.. "
As for the Zel lifestyle brand, deployed by the Spanish hotelier and Rafeal Nadal, after an initial opening on Mallorca in 2022, then on the Costa Brava in 2023, it recently crossed the Atlantic with the opening last spring of a hotel in the Dominican Republic, in Punta Cana, with an all-inclusive resort of 190 rooms. Other establishments are planned for Sayulita in Mexico, Vlore in Albania and, to cap it all, Madrid, on one of the Spanish capital's main thoroughfares, Gran Via. It's unlikely that Real fan Rafael Nadal and former Barça star Lionel Messi will be staying there together on a clasico night...
