Meliá Hotels International to invest 100 million euros in its digital transformation

Meliá Digital is the project with which the hotel company will renew its customer relationship strategy, spearheading a comprehensive transformation that will also revolutionize the lives of employees and the relationship with investors and hotel owners. The group will expand its structure and invest more than 100 million euros over the next three years in technology.

 

The aim of the project is that in 2017, 40% of the company's revenue will come from its direct channels, mainly from customers affiliated to Melia Rewards, the loyalty program.

At the same time, the other channels will also continue to grow and contribute the remaining 60% of turnover. With all this, the on-line channels as a whole, both own and intermediated, will already surpass off-line or traditional channels in 2015.

This transition of Meliá to the digital world will not be limitedá to the commercial or customer relationship, but will extendá to the entire hotel value chain, with three clear focuses: 

• The customer: with  the project Meliá Digital all interactions with the end customer (B2C) will be transformed through the development of melia.com and mobile applications; with the professional customer (B2B), through the development of the MeliaPro tool; and for business travel, through the development of Business Travel by Meliá, which currently has 125,000 registered companies. The revolution also extends to the front desk at hotels, as customers will be able to check in using their mobile phones or tablets, among other new features.

 The employee: the digital transformation of the sales force was launched during the Group's global sales convention, held recently at the Meliá Villaitana, in Alicante. The more than 300 sales managers experienced the digital leap and the new features of Meliá Sales App, which brings together in a simple tablet all the tools necessary for the sales function. Meliá is also implementing digital evolutions in all the company's management areas, such as Finance, Expansion, Human Resources, etc.

•The investor / hotel owner: one of the main actions to incorporate this group of interest includes the creation of a new Owner's Portal where they can find all the necessary information about the company, learn about its advantages and make reservations and manage their business.

The MeliáDigital project will be led by the new VP of the Global Digital Sales &Marketing area,Lluís Pons, who for the last few years has been in charge of Vueling's digital strategy and marketing. Likewise, the multinational group Accenture joins this project providing capabilities, technology and experience in digital transformation in the hotel sector worldwide.

Meli's commitment is backed by the investment allocated to this project, which over the next three years will amount to some 100 million euros, earmarked for five major areas of work: organizational reinforcement (the area's workforce has increased by 30 people), technological commitment, digital marketing, strengthening of the Meliá Rewards loyalty program, and the collaboration model with Accenture.

As Jose María Dalmau, SVP Business Development at Meliá explains, “the big revolutionón is the personalization of our value proposition to the customer: multi-device technology, personalization and prediction engines and new digital marketing platforms make it possible to truly personalize the customer experience at all stages of the so-called customer journey, i.e. trip preparation, booking, stay and post-trip”.