Meliá Hotels International may be based in Spain, but its gaze is firmly fixed on Asia Pacific, according to Executive Vice President and CEO Gabriel Escarrer, who recently completed an annual tour during which he signed a number of agreements for new hotels in the region, Meliá announced today.
According to the company, Meliá has opened more than 30 hotels in Asia Pacific in the last five years alone, quadrupling its footprint in the region. The new deals signed by Escarrer will bring the company's total regional portfolio up to 45 hotels, encompassing 16 hotels in Indonesia, 10 in China, seven in Vietnam, four in Thailand, five in Malaysia, and one each in Mongolia and Myanmar.
Among the new hotels planned in Asia Pacific are Meliá Xueye Lake (pictured) in China's Shandong province, which will offer 120 rooms and villas, as well as meeting, sports, and wellness facilities; Meliá Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, an existing hotel that will be renovated and rebranded in 2019 to include 261 rooms and meeting rooms for up to 900 people; INNSIDE Bangkok Sukhumvit in Thailand's capital city, which will open in 2021 with 176 rooms; Meliá Ba Vi Mountain Retreat in Vietnam, which will open in 2018 with 100 rooms, including 12 bungalows and three villas; and Meliá Bukit Tinggi in Malaysia, a wellness-themed resort scheduled to open in 2022 with 219 rooms, manicured gardens and an orchid conservatory, wellness facilities, and an unspecified amount of meeting space.
Said Escarrer, "The size of this market, the strong organic growth we are seeing in China and Southeast Asia, and the progressive growth in revenues in the region lead us to predict that in the medium term the region will make a contribution as important to company results as Cuba represented after its addition 30 years ago."
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