The Spanish hotel company Meliá Hotels International and the Greenland Group have reached a strategic agreement  to join forces to pursue their growth internationally, inside and outside China, respectively.

For Greenland Group, an immediate impact of the agreement will be the launch of its urban hotel brand in Europe, through the adaptation and re-branding of a Meliá operated hotel in the city of Frankfurt (Germany), which was chosen by the signers because of its dynamism in the business travel segment.

In the short and medium term, Greenland Group will continue to grow its urban brand in Europe and China, and will cooperate with Meliá Hotels International in further development of hotels over the coming years.

In 2010, Meliá inaugurated its first hotel in Shanghai – the Gran Meliá Shanghai- and is currently finalising work on the construction of the spectacular Gran Meliá Xian and Meliá Chongqing. In the short term, this agreement will allow the company to open two new Meliá hotels in Jinan, scheduled for 2013, and Tianjin, two fast-growing cities located along the corridor between Shanghai and Beijing. In the medium term, the alliance foresees the evaluation of numerous hotel development projects for the most successful Meliá brands, such as Innside and Meliá in the city hotel business, and even Paradisus in the emerging resort hotel business in China.

The Greenland Group and Meliá hotels international partnership also entails cooperation in the areas of training, global hotel distribution systems and procurement, as such complementing each other in the development and implementation of best practice management systems and responding to a mutual need to grow the international customer base and to improve the awareness of the hotel brands operated by both groups in the complex Chinese and European markets.

Greenland's expertise in Chinese culinary and Chinese culture would benefit Meliá to excel in providing services to the Chinese guests, currently the largest outbound market into Europe, as well as offering authentic Chinese dining experience to the local market.

Mr. Gabriel Escarrer, Vice Chairman and CEO of Meliá hotels International expressed "In the new world tourism paradigm, China will soon become the largest market on the planet for both in and outbound travel. The presence of the Meliá brands are therefore key to our success in the Asia Pacific region and for our business and resort hotels in the rest of the world. Given the unprecedented dimensions of this change in a business which is already complex and specialized, global hotel chains and the country's powerful business groups must seek partnerships if we are not to miss the boat and hence continue to grow within a win-win scenario.'

The Greenland Group is one of the first Chinese hotel groups to open a hotel with its own brand in Europe and projects to become a reference for European and Chinese business and leisure travellers in both continents.