Sol Melia Upgrades To Grab Bigger Piece Of Corp. Pie

<B> Sol Melia Upgrades To Grab Bigger Piece Of Corp. Pie</B>

By Chris Davis

Three years into a plan of rapid acquisition and development that has compiled a portfolio of more than 240 hotels worldwide, Sol Melia Hotels and Resorts is upgrading and standardizing its offerings to snatch a larger share of the American corporate meetings and incentive market.

With the ever-increasing presence of American brands in international destinations a potential threat, the luxury chain is moving on two fronts to convince American planners to book international groups, particularly high-end board meetings and large incentives: The chain has established an American-based meetings-specific sales force with a growing Web presence and it is upgrading most of its properties' technological offerings. "The key to success is booking corporate meetings from North American companies, but the market is very specific and highly demanding," said Emanuel Schreibmaier, vice president of sales and marketing for the chain's Americas division.

To meet that need, and to keep separate the needs for corporate meeting planners from Sol Melia's bread-and-butter leisure travel market, the chain earlier this year created CIMAS (conventions, incentives, Melia and Sol), a Miami-based sales team that books only meetings at any of the chain's properties worldwide. CIMAS can be accessed through the chain's Web site (www.solmelia.com) or by phone.

"CIMAS is a conference network within our company that handles all meetings business," Schreibmaier said. "It lets planners book without any distractions, and you need that kind of one-stop shop in this market."

Sol Melia is in the process of revamping the CIMAS page of its Web site, and soon will offer planners the opportunity to view scalable floor plans of 50 properties.

Technology figures in the second part of Sol Melia's meetings focus as well, as the company is standardizing videoconferencing capability and ISDN-line installation in most of its properties. "We are in the process of upgrading the infrastructure and bringing our existing space to international technological standards, particularly in the small meeting rooms," Schreibmaier said.

Currently, corporate meetings, incentives and hybrid incentive meetings comprise 20 to 25 percent of Sol Melia's revenue. Half a decade since it was considered a predominantly leisure brand, about half its revenue is from some sort of business travel, Schreibmaier said.

"We're seeing a definite increase in meetings business from some of the e-commerce and computer hardware and software companies," Schreibmaier said. "We just hosted 600 people from Microsoft in Caracas, for example. There's also been more interest from large entertainment brands, along with traditional incentive travelers like the insurance and financial industries."

Sol Melia offers specialized meeting rates at its properties, which Schreibmaier said lessens the need for negotiation over rates. "Most often, the planner's foremost concern isn't cost but communication and security," he said.

With the exception of its Brazilian properties --"we didn't book much there because of the current troubles"--Schreibmaier sees softening of the international meetings market.

While Sol Melia may cash its most substantial checks from large corporate incentive groups, that makes it no different than many other international sites. The difference, said Latin and South American meetings specialist Carol Krugman, president of Coral Gables, Fla.-based Krugman Group International, is how an international property handles small corporate meetings. Sol Melia acquits itself well, she said.

"Not many international hotels are good at making small groups feel comfortable in a large property," Krugman said. "Sol Melia is able to, through both its architecture, which supports breakout rooms, and its service level, which focuses on offering the same level of service to small and large groups."

Krugman's forte is international, very high-level board meetings of 30 to 150 attendees, a demanding niche. "They're looking for five-star properties and outstanding service, and expect quick responses from the hotel staff," Krugman said. "But Sol Melia's standards are very high. They're new and have a big challenge, but they're respected and their portfolio is competitive."

In some locations, the local Sol Melia is the largest property and the only one equipped to handle large incentives. Though that could lead to a heavy advantage during negotiations for such groups, Unisys Corp.'s Boca Raton, Fla.-based Latin America Caribbean division didn't find that to be the case, according to division director of marketing James Ekholm.

"Not at all," said Ekholm, who booked 1,100 people for a hybrid incentive meeting in the Sol Melia Madrid last March. "They were the only hotel in Madrid who could have handled a group of our size, but we booked in an off-season and had no problems with the negotiations."

Ed Nemeth, president of Sacramento, Calif.-based Spectrum Events Group, booked a meeting of more than 400 in Barcelona earlier this year that bucked the international meeting negotiating trends he's seen. "Overall, there's less room to negotiate internationally because there's high rates of occupancy," Nemeth said. "But we didn't have any problems with Sol Melia. Their meeting facilities were great, with a very good amount of space and the audiovisual capacity to support our needs.