Face-to-Face: Ruben Casas
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This week, Travel Daily chats with Ruben Casas, Melia Hotels International’s senior director of sales & marketing for Asia Pacific, about the recently-launched travel agent programme, Melia PRO…
Q) Melia Hotels launched the new MeliaPRO travel agent portal in late 2014. What has the response been like from the agent community?
Meliá Hotels International recognises the importance of our collaborative partners and work to ensure they have the tools and programs necessary to maximise their income and so achieve mutual benefits. During this time we have received 290,000 visits to our online platform from which high percentage are repetitive agents and members of the loyalty program Meliá Pro Rewards. The platform has led to Meliá Hotels International greater global presence and a greater knowledge of the group’s brands for travel agents.
Q) With Melia expanding its portfolio in Asia, are you seeing many Asian travel agents signing up to MeliaPRO?
We have an extensive database updated with more than 120,000 members Meliá agents Pro Rewards, and more than 20,000 agencies that have registered their meliapro.com agency. In Asia we need to improve our platform and we are adapting the tool for it. In 2015 we registered around 500 travel agencies from Asia, and we are convinced that in 2016 we will triplicate this number of registrations.
Q) Many hotel groups and travel companies are increasingly trying to drive more direct bookings, why is Melia continuing to focus on agents?
We believe travel agents will remain an important distribution channel, most people use travel agency for leisure, and business travel is always supported by a travel agency. People still want to use a travel agency when they are travelling to an area they are unfamiliar like international travels; agents keep close relationships with clients and they feel safer. Our target agencies are aimed at travel agents high-end, international Consortias and home-based agents that offer a high-level and prone to “Bleisure” (travel that mixes business with leisure).
Q) Have you experienced an upturn in travel trade business since the launch of Melia PRO?
In 2015 with MELIÁ PRO travel agents portal we increased 36% sales from travel agencies which was basically through our digital solution and the call centre. The biggest growth comes from the regions outside of Spain, where we have a large acceptance. However, Spain still remains the main source country, followed by USA, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and the UK.
Q) And are you planning any additions to MeliaPRO, or any other agent-focused initiatives in 2016?
Meliá Hotels International is aware of the importance of the learning process to generate professional growth. Therefore, through a funny training method using short movies, agents are the main characters and need to help the two protagonists, called “Super Travel Agents”, with their Impossible Mission. By the end of the program agents will become what we call Super Expert in Meliá, knowing our seven brands very well and all the hotels of the company.
The outcome? Meliá PRO TRAINING will provide to agents with the best key selling points for helping them fitting their customers’ needs, and also helping them find the hotel that matches their preferences. To encourage it, during 2016 we have a weekly prize for agents that became experts and finish the training.
As part of the company’s culture we are in a continuous improvement stage, during 2016 we will launch a new website, we are already developing a social media strategy and more payment options to make the portal as much functional and attractive as possible for agents.
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