Face to Face: Jan Guile, MedPlaya
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MedPlaya operates several hotel and resorts in some of Spain’s most popular resorts for British tourists. Travel Daily caught up with the hotel group to see what is in store for 2014, including a brand new hotel first announced here.
Q) Which UK tour operators work with MedPlaya? Do you plan to expand these contracts?
We work with all the major British tour operators and online operators. We have long standing agreements with Tui UK, Thomas Cook, Jet2holidays and Cosmos who are all the traditional operators and we also have strong agreements with the new operators such as Travel Republic, Booking.com, Expedia, lowcostholidays and On Holiday Group .
We are constantly updating our sales channels to make sure the customer can easily book a MedPlaya.com hotel. We change with the times and have deliberately set out to widen our reach beyond the traditional tour operators although we obviously value these channels very much as they remain a major presence in the marketplace. For example, we have been working with Tui UK (Thomson Holidays) for more than 40 years.
Q) Are your hotels popular with UK guests? What do you think it is that guests like about your hotels?
Our hotels are extremely popular with UK guests. Across the chain the British market represents approximately 70% of our customers and depending on the resort and time of year this proportion can be much higher.
We know from our customer feedback that our guests very much appreciate our friendly and caring staff, the good location of our hotels and our quality of food and service.
The fact that we offer this standard of service at a price that is affordable means that MedPlaya.com tends to rate highly with customers for value for money.
Our food and entertainment suits the British tastes while encouraging them to experience the different flavours of Spain. We have more than 40 years’ experience of looking after UK customers and we always appreciate and work on their feedback.
Q) Do you have plans to open any hotels soon or in the future? When and where?
This news is hot off the press, but we have just welcomed a new hotel into the MedPlaya family in Benalmadena, Costa del Sol.
The Hotel Balmoral will be opening in April. We only confirmed this last week so we are very busy preparing everything for its re-opening as the MedPlaya.com Balmoral.
Q) What else is new at MedPlaya? Do you have any plans to add facilities or make any renovations?
We offer free Wi-Fi in all our hotels in the lobby area and from summer 2014 – for a small charge – customers will also be able to access Wi-Fi from their rooms and all areas of the hotel. As more customers bring digital devices such as smartphones, tablets and e-readers with them this has become very important to them.
The Hotel Riviera in Benalmadena was refurbished completely just last year and is now a very modern and contemporary hotel with excellent facilities.
New for summer 2014, as I mentioned previously, is the Hotel Balmoral. We will be making sure that the MedPlaya.com brand is strong in that hotel for this summer.
We have plans over the next few years to further develop our family hotels concept and each year we carry out maintenance in our hotels to make sure standards are met.
Our staff are our most important asset however and we provide annual training to make sure customer service is at the heart of what we do. All our staff have a real drive and motivation to provide our guests with the best holiday ever.
Q) What challenges do you currently face and how are you looking to overcome them?
There are many challenges in the hotel business today. Of course the state of the financial economy is the biggest challenge for everyone and that is why we work hard to offer our guests very good value for money.
We keep our prices as low as possible for our customers and we frequently put great offers on our website, especially for those customers wishing to book early.
The marketplace is very competitive and we are constantly making sure we offer better value than other hotels in the same area.
We run a loyalty card which helps us retain customers for future visits by offering discounts and special services. We also provide All Inclusive options at some of our larger hotels which are popular for those guests who want to have a clear budget on their holidays.
Free child stays are also very important in our family hotels, as are long stay packages for those wanting to enjoy a little more time by the pool.
The rise of the internet has presented its own challenges to us and the wider industry, but we have been quick to react and this has helped us enormously.
We have developed our own website which is very user friendly and the number of guests booking via the website is growing every day. We can promote special deals and offers online and really show our customers what our hotels offer.
We also know that today our customers are looking for a range of different experiences, so we offer Adult-Only hotels, Couples-Only, All Inclusive and Family hotels – with an emphasis on entertainment – and also Aparthotels for those customers looking for a bit more independence on their holidays.
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