Sol Meliá’s sales go south, but the company sees brighter future

Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá churned out sale revenues for 209 million euros in the first quarter of the year, a figure that stands for an 8 percent dip compared to 2002. The company pins the blame on the meltdown of the leisure industry sparked off by the war in Iraq, on the Holy Week held in April and on a plummeting dollar against the European currency

Operation benefits before interests, paybacks and taxes (EBITDA is the index acronym in Spanish) slid 26 percent down to 40.2 million euros. For its part, gross revenues barely reached 2.7 million euros, 75 percent less than last year. Without taking account of the dollar devaluation against the euro, the company’s income, EBITDA and gross revenues would have peaked 2.4, 14.8 and 28.8 percent, respectively.

Average earnings per room in the chain’s hotels also fell by 4.6 percent compared to the first quarter of 2002, mostly as a result of the ripple effects over the leisure industry of the U.S. war in Iraq, the Holy Week observance in the first month of the second quarter (April) instead of March –as it happened in 2002- and due to a sliding greenback that certainly wreaked havoc with quite a number of lodging facilities in the Americas.

Nonetheless, Sol Meliá is upbeat about its prospects because April seemed to have been a turning point and the number of reservations for the months of May and June –coupled with great forecasts for the summertime season- points to better upcoming results across the board.

In the same breath, the company informed online bookings at its website www.solmelia.com spiked 322 percent compared to the same period of time the year before.

During that span of time, Sol Meliá’s website –available in Spanish, English and German- was clicked open by over 20,000 surfers. Marked by a stress on marketing policies and tailor-made service for its clientele, the new website has seen the light of day keen to becoming one of the top sale channels for the Spain-based megabuck chain.

At the same time, it represents a key tool to get better acquainted with customers and put the group’s brands more clearly on the map. Moreover, www.solmelia.com guarantees lower prices online and is committed to refund any difference in case that premise is not met.