Spanish hotel operator Melia Hotels International has signed two deals to bring its ME by Melia lifestyle luxury brand to the Middle East, Hotelier can exclusively reveal.
The new hotels are planned for Dubai and Doha.
Following the company’s debut in the region with the opening of Melia Dubai on April 29, the company’s vice-chairman and CEO Gabriel Escarrer Jaume told Hotelier Middle East: “Melia is the most international of our brands. It is the brand we use the most to get into a new country. Once we have it covered with the Melia product we always reach for the premium segment, so you are the first one to know we have signed a ME by Melia”.
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“ME is lifestyle concept like the Ws of the world. So we have signed a ME product here in Dubai,” revealed Jaume.
Although he couldn’t reveal the location of the property, Jaume said that it was a new-build expected to open within three years.
Design is critical to the ME brand, in that the surroundings are intended to stimulate visual experiences, so the hotels cannot be conversions, explained Jaume.
To date, Dominique Perrault has designed ME Barcelona and the upcoming ME Vienna, while Norman Foster is behind the ME London, opening later this year.
“We want to create a hotel that is a destination in itself — the place to be and be seen. We have a very profitable and successful hotel in Madrid called the ME Madrid. Sixty percent of our revenues [here] are generated by food and beverage. We wanted to create something unique in London and in this part of the world it is a must to create a lifestyle concept and I am sure it’s going to be very successful,” asserted Jaume.
He added that two hotels had also been signed in Qatar — one of which will be a ME — and that there could be “a couple of hotels” in Saudi Arabia.
In terms of growth globally, Jaume revealed: “We have already signed 38 hotels that will be incorporated in the next two and half years — that’s 9000 rooms, more or less 8% of our existing portfolio. The most important thing is 92% will be outside of Spain and 89% will be under our premium brands the Gran Melia, ME or the Paradisus ultra all-inclusive brand”.
Melia Hotels International operates 362 hotels in 35-plus countries on four continents.
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