Travel agents can visit hotels remotely and keep up to date with company news without ever leaving home, and MeliaPro also launches a campaign to stimulate bookings by travel agents and corporate travellers.
Meliá Hotels International has created the Meliá Pro Travel Labs community on Facebook, an exclusive community for travel agents with a programme of live events in which agents will have the chance to take part in webinars, workshops, round tables and virtual visits to company hotels.
In parallel, the meliapro.com B2B booking site has also joined the major sales campaign launched by the group to reconnect with customers. Under the tagline "When you come back, trust your events to Meliá", the company aims to stimulate activity in the MICE segment by offering maximum flexibility for group bookings, extra MeliáRewards points and the peace of mind of staying in a hotel and hosting an event in a place with the new health and safety standards from the Stay Safe with Meliá programme, certified by Bureau Veritas.
The impact of Covid19 on the travel industry has made the hotel company ramp up its digital transformation in response to the demands of the new environment. As its Chief Executive Officer, Gabriel Escarrer, has already indicated, "the companies that focus most on technology and digitalisation have a competitive advantage that will help them emerge from this crisis."
In this context, the company intends to strengthen its direct relationship with B2B customers in a secure virtual environment using new digital communication tools to replace traditional face-to-face meetings. The Meliá Pro website and booking engine launched for travel agents in 2014 is now joined by the new Meliá Pro Travel Lab platform, a channel designed to provide relevant information on company hotels and destinations, training courses and exclusive benefits and incentives. This virtual community is already available in Spain and Latin America, and will soon be extended to other countries all around the world.
With a weekly programme of live digital events through Facebook Live and Zoom, Meliá will also share the latest company news in a very direct way, helping travel agents stay up to date on company brands and destinations and also having the chance to remotely visit hotels.In the first live session, Meliá Hotels International brought together travel agents in a virtual meeting to present the reopening of its premium hotels Gran Meliá Sancti Petri, Hotel Don Pepe and ME Sitges, with their General Managers sharing all the latest news as well as information on health and safety measures. Next Thursday, the second live event will present the reopening and news on the Meliá Cala Galdana, Meliá Villaitana, Meliá Hacienda del Conde, Meliá Atlántico Isla Canela and INNSiDE Ibiza hotels.
As an additional incentive, the company is also offering a prize draw to win 50,000 MeliáRewards points to all the travel agents taking part in each session."In these uncertain times for our industry, it is important we stand by our professional partners and strengthen our relationships with them. The key to our success is innovation in the way we connect with our partners," said José Miguel Moreno, Senior Global Director of B2B Sales & Marketing at Meliá Hotels International.
