Sol Meliá Scooped Up 31.6 Percent of Cuba´s Tourist Inflow in the First Quarter of 2005

Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá welcomed 227,796 guests in the first three months of the ongoing year, up a walloping 31.6 percent from the first quarter of 2004.

During a presentation the Majorca-based company made at Cuba´s International Tourism Fair, top execs informed its hotels on the island nation totaled $100 million in the course of 2004 at an average price tag of $77.38 per room.

Sol Meliá also announced last week the grand opening of its 22nd establishment in Cuba, scheduled for early 2006. The Meliá-Las Dunas will strengthen the Majorca-based company´s stance as the number-one foreign hotelier on the island nation.

Amaury Escalona, of Sol Meliá´s Cuba Division, told Prensa Latina News Agency that the Meliá-Las Dunas, located on Cayo Santa Maria, an islet off the northern shore of Villa Clara, in central Cuba, will be ready to go in early 2006.

The announcement was made within the framework of the 25th International Tourism Fair in Cuba, where the Spanish giant celebrated fifteen years of operations on the island.

Mr. Escalona remembered that Sol Meliá got its big break in Cuba back in 1990 when it opened the 649-room Sol Palmeras in Varadero, some 89 miles east of Havana.

“As we speak, Sol Meliá runs over 8,000 rooms in 21 hotels all across Cuba,” he concluded.