Meliá Hotels International is the operating group behind four luxurybrands admitted by the Library: Gran Meliá, ME by Meliá, Paradisus byMeliá and The Meliá Collection.
Position
Meliá Hotels International is the operating group behind four luxury
brands admitted by the Library: Gran Meliá, ME by Meliá, Paradisus by
Meliá and The Meliá Collection. The group record matters because the
same corporate system can own a hotel, lease it, manage it for somebody
else or franchise a brand to an independent owner.
Register position
LHL-461 · P2-07-05. Current register scope: LHL-275 Gran Meliá; LHL-276
ME by Meliá; LHL-277 Paradisus by Meliá; LHL-278 The Meliá Collection.
Origin
The company dates its beginning to 1956 in Palma de Mallorca, when
Gabriel Escarrer Juliá entered the hotel business at the age of
twenty-one.
First house
Secondary histories identify the first operation as Hotel Altair in
Palma, taken on lease rather than built as a company-owned flagship.
Meliá's own historical material opened for this entry confirms 1956 and
Palma but does not name the hotel.
Leasing as an origin story
The company therefore began through operating control rather than
ownership of a landmark building. That distinction remains central to
the modern group.
Leisure roots
Meliá still describes itself as unusual among major international hotel
groups because its origin is in leisure hospitality rather than urban
business hotels.
Spanish expansion
During the 1960s and 1970s the company expanded through the Balearic
Islands, Canary Islands and other Spanish resort destinations.
HOTASA
In 1984 the company acquired HOTASA and, according to its own historical
timeline, became Spain's largest hotel group.
The Meliá acquisition
In 1987 the company acquired the Meliá hotel chain and adopted the Sol
Meliá identity.
Name inheritance
The Meliá name entered the founder's company through acquisition before
eventually becoming the name of the entire corporation. This was not
merely a portfolio purchase: an acquired hotel name ultimately displaced
the original corporate identity.
Public company
Meliá's history records 1996 as the year it became the first European
hotel group quoted on the stock exchange.
Family continuity
Despite public listing, the Escarrer family has remained a major
shareholder bloc and leadership passed to the second generation.
Founder succession
Gabriel Escarrer Juliá stepped back from the chairmanship in 2023 and
became Honorary Chairman; Gabriel Escarrer Jaume became Chairman while
continuing as CEO.
Founder's death
Gabriel Escarrer Juliá died on 26 November 2024. The 2024 governance
report records the resulting changes in the family holding structures.
Paradisus
Meliá's own history dates the birth of Paradisus Resorts to 1995 and
describes it as specializing in the luxury sector. It is the oldest of
the four luxury brands in the present LHL group scope.
All-inclusive luxury
Meliá currently defines Paradisus as an All Inclusive Luxury brand built
around its Destination Inclusive proposition, intended to connect resort
hospitality with destination, culture and nature.
Gran Meliá
Gran Meliá is the group's expression of formal Spanish luxury,
emphasizing service, architecture, gastronomy and Spanish cultural
codes. Within the LHL four it is the closest to a conventional
international luxury-hotel flag.
ME by Meliá
Meliá launched ME by Meliá in 2006, its fiftieth-anniversary year. ME
was created internally rather than acquired.
Lifestyle authorship
Meliá's own service material describes ME as its most cosmopolitan
brand, tied to fashion, art, gastronomy, nightlife and the local social
scene. It represents an internally authored move into lifestyle
hospitality rather than the purchase of an outside lifestyle group.
INNSiDE
In 2007 Meliá acquired the German INNSiDE brand. It is outside the
four-brand luxury scope here but proves that the group has used both
internal creation and acquisition.
TRYP acquisition
On 21 August 2000 Sol Meliá agreed to acquire 100% of TRYP, then a
60-hotel Spanish chain.
What TRYP cost
The contemporary CNMV filing states consideration of 60 billion pesetas:
27 billion pesetas in cash plus 13,222,266 Sol Meliá shares valued at
€15 each.
What the sellers received
The same filing said former TRYP shareholders would receive about 7.2%
of Sol Meliá and Rufino Calero would take a board seat.
Why the filing matters
The regulatory filing preserves the transaction structure and
consideration that retrospective corporate histories compress into a
single acquisition line.
TRYP leaves the system
In 2010 Meliá entered a global alliance with Wyndham that created TRYP
by Wyndham. A brand acquired by one group could therefore move into
another corporate system while the original hotel company continued.
Corporate rename
In 2011 Sol Meliá changed its corporate name to Meliá Hotels
International.
The Meliá Collection
The Meliá Collection is the group's luxury collection proposition for
distinctive hotels with independent identity and strong sense of place.
Collection logic
A collection brand allows an existing hotel to enter Meliá's commercial
system without pretending that Meliá created the building's earlier
history.
Independent ownership
Meliá's 2025 announcement for Five Flowers Hotel & Spa stated that Paya
Hotels remained the property's owner while the hotel joined The Meliá
Collection. Owner, house and corporate collection were separate.
Affiliation versus branding
Meliá's broader Affiliated by Meliá platform explicitly says affiliation
does not require adoption of a group brand. It gives independent hotels
access to the company's commercial and distribution strength.
Degrees of attachment
Meliá therefore sells several depths of corporate relationship: hard
brand, collection, affiliation, management or franchise.
The luxury four
Meliá's own luxury material groups Gran Meliá, The Meliá Collection, ME
by Meliá and Paradisus together. This matches the four-brand LHL scope.
Portfolio beyond LHL
The wider corporate system also includes Meliá Hotels & Resorts, ZEL,
INNSiDE by Meliá, Sol by Meliá and Affiliated by Meliá. Their exclusion
here is a Library scope decision, not evidence that they are outside
Meliá.
2025 operating portfolio
Meliá's first-half 2025 investor release reported 365 hotels and 93,350
rooms in the current portfolio.
Contract mix
Those 365 hotels were reported as 39 owned, 85 leased, 167 managed and
74 franchised.
Asset-light majority
Managed and franchised hotels together represented 241 of the 365
hotels. Meliá is increasingly asset-light, but owned and leased hotels
remain a substantial part of its system.
Management
Under a management agreement, an outside investor can own the property
while Meliá operates the hotel and applies the relevant brand and
systems.
Franchise
Under a franchise agreement, an owner/operator can use a Meliá brand and
corporate distribution subject to contract without Meliá owning the real
estate.
Lease
A leased hotel gives Meliá operating control while the underlying real
estate remains with a landlord.
Ownership
Meliá still directly owns selected hotel assets. No single asset-light
formula describes the entire group.
Barcelona example
For the Barcelona project later operated as a Gran Meliá, Meliá stated
that the existing owner and Tyrus Capital entrusted it to manage the
hotel and congress centre. The luxury flag did not make Meliá the
real-estate owner.
La Palma example
Meliá identified Sol La Palma as owned by ATOM and operated by Meliá,
with the owner funding much of the rebranding investment. Again, owner,
operator and brand were separate.
2025 pipeline
At first half 2025 Meliá reported a pipeline of 70 hotels and 12,954
rooms, taking current portfolio plus pipeline to 435 hotels and 106,304
rooms.
Pipeline contract mix
The pipeline comprised 46 management hotels, 23 franchised hotels and
one leased hotel, with no owned hotels listed.
Strategic direction
Meliá said all hotels signed in the first half of 2025 were under
asset-light models. Nine of those signings were in the luxury segment,
specifically Gran Meliá and The Meliá Collection.
Repositioning
By early 2025 Meliá said it had repositioned 40 hotels over two years
with more than €400 million invested by the company and partners.
What owners buy
The group can move an existing asset upward through renovation,
branding, distribution and management rather than relying only on newly
built hotels. Owner capital and Meliá's operating system can therefore
create the guest-facing luxury product together.
MeliáRewards
Meliá launched its loyalty programme in 1994; it is now MeliáRewards.
Loyalty, direct distribution and customer data are group-level assets
that no single luxury brand can reproduce at the same scale.
Why the group entry exists
A Gran Meliá card can explain Gran Meliá. It cannot explain why an owner
may choose Gran Meliá, The Meliá Collection, affiliation, franchise or
management. LHL-461 records that corporate layer.
Luxury strategy
In 2025 Gabriel Escarrer publicly argued for moving Spanish tourism
toward higher-value demand rather than simply increasing visitor numbers
while Meliá accelerated premium and luxury repositioning.
Labour and housing
Reuters reported in March 2025 that Meliá was buying accommodation for
seasonal workers in high-cost Spanish resort markets because local rents
had become a recruitment and retention problem. The economics around a
successful resort do not end at the hotel boundary.
Candour
⚑ The Escarrer family remains deeply embedded in the shareholder
structure, but Meliá is a listed company and should not be described as
privately owned.\
⚑ Four brands is the Library's luxury scope, not Meliá's total corporate
brand count.\
⚑ The 365-hotel figure is dated to first half 2025 and will move with
openings, exits and conversions.\
⚑ Corporate sources opened for this entry confirm 1956 and Palma but do
not name Hotel Altair; that identification rests on secondary historical
accounts.\
⚑ A Meliá flag does not establish real-estate ownership: the group
itself separates owned, leased, managed and franchised hotels.\
⚑ Membership in The Meliá Collection does not make Meliá the author of a
house's pre-existing architecture or ownership history.\
⚑ "All Inclusive Luxury" is Meliá's own current classification for
Paradisus; inclusions and operating arrangements vary by property.\
The corporate history also contains losses and transfers: TRYP was
acquired in 2000 and later became TRYP by Wyndham; Sol Meliá itself
disappeared as a corporate name in 2011. This entry does not establish
the owner or contract type of every hotel beneath the four LHL brands.
Library scope --- four brands
LHL-275 · Gran Meliá; LHL-276 · ME by Meliá; LHL-277 · Paradisus by
Meliá; LHL-278 · The Meliá Collection.
Timeline
1956 --- Gabriel Escarrer Juliá begins the company in Palma de
Mallorca.\
1984 --- HOTASA acquisition.\
1987 --- Meliá chain acquired and Sol Meliá identity adopted.\
1994 --- loyalty programme launched.\
1995 --- Paradisus born.\
1996 --- stock-market listing.\
2000 --- TRYP acquired for 60 billion pesetas in cash and shares.\
2006 --- ME by Meliá launched.\
2007 --- INNSiDE acquired.\
2010 --- TRYP by Wyndham alliance.\
2011 --- company renamed Meliá Hotels International.\
2023 --- Gabriel Escarrer Jaume becomes Chairman while remaining CEO.\
26 November 2024 --- Gabriel Escarrer Juliá dies.\
H1 2025 --- 365 operating hotels and a 70-hotel pipeline reported.
Profile
Meliá Hotels International · LHL-461 · P2-07-05. Headquarters: Palma de
Mallorca, Spain. Origin: 1956. Founder: Gabriel Escarrer Juliá. Chairman
& CEO: Gabriel Escarrer Jaume. LHL luxury scope: four brands. H1 2025
operating portfolio: 365 hotels / 93,350 rooms --- 39 owned, 85 leased,
167 managed, 74 franchised. Pipeline: 70 hotels / 12,954 rooms.
Conclusion
Meliá's corporate history begins with a leased Mallorcan hotel and still
makes most sense as a history of operating control rather than monuments
owned outright. It bought HOTASA and the Meliá name, bought TRYP and
INNSiDE, created Paradisus and ME, and later built collection and
affiliation structures that let independent owners enter its commercial
system at different depths. The four luxury brands are distinct
propositions, but the parent company supplies distribution, loyalty,
management expertise, contract structures and the ability to reposition
an existing building into a different market. In Meliá, as throughout
Part II, the name on the door is only the beginning of the ownership
story.
## Sources
Signed source titles below are active hyperlinks. Accessed September
2026.
1. [Meliá Hotels International · Annual Report 2015 --- corporate
history](https://www.meliahotelsinternational.com/en/shareholdersAndInvestors/AnnualReportDocs/2015/annual_report_2015_en.pdf)
2. [Meliá Hotels International · Press Dossier 2019 --- history at a
glance](https://www.meliahotelsinternational.com/en/news-room/InsDossierDocs/Press%20Dossier%202019.pdf)
3. [CNMV · Sol Meliá acquisition of TRYP · 21 August
2000](https://www.cnmv.es/portal/hr/resultadobusquedahr?division=1&ihr=2&lang=es&nif=A78304516&page=46)
4. [Meliá Hotels International · First Half Results 2025 --- portfolio
and
pipeline](https://www.meliahotelsinternational.com/en/shareholdersAndInvestors/PublicDocs/2025/Q2%202025/MHI%20Release%20H12025.pdf)
5. [Meliá Hotels International · First Half 2025 results ---
asset-light
growth](https://www.meliahotelsinternational.com/en/news-room/news/Documents/English%20Ref.30-25%20Resultados%20primer%20semestre%202025.pdf)
6. [Meliá Hotels International · 2024 Annual Corporate Governance
Report](https://www.meliahotelsinternational.com/en/shareholdersAndInvestors/AnnualReportCGDocs/IAGC_2024_ENG_VF.pdf)
7. [Meliá Hotels International · Visions of Beauty --- Luxury
Brands](https://dam.melia.com/melia/file/8ttiHHGzVg5qdgewjzLm.pdf)
8. [Meliá Hotels International · Brand culture and
portfolio](https://onboarding.melia.com/landings/home_english.html)
9. [Reuters · Meliá urges Spanish tourism upmarket as hotelier beats
profit goal · 22 January
2025](https://www.reuters.com/business/melia-beats-2024-ebitda-target-sees-better-year-ahead-2025-01-22/)
10. [Reuters · Spanish hotel chain Meliá buys housing for its workers as
rents surge · 10 March
2025](https://www.reuters.com/business/spanish-hotel-chain-melia-buys-housing-its-workers-rents-surge-2025-03-10/)