Melia Hotels International : Meliá Hotels International, named leader in corporate reputation in the travel industry for the fifth consecutive year by MERCO

Meliá Hotels International has once again been named the number one company in the MERCO ranking for corporate reputation in the Spanish travel industry. The leading Spanish hotel company by number of rooms has been the top company in this prestigious ranking for the last 5 years based on product and service quality, internationalization, ethics and social responsibility, innovation, people management, finances and management leadership. The methodology and results of the MERCO survey are subject to an independent review by KPMG in accordance with ISAE 3000 and are also publically available.

The company began as a family business and is the only company in the travel industry traded on the Spanish Ibex 35 stock market, as well as one of the most international Spanish companies. Meliá has also made an important commitment to corporate governance and responsibility, and is focused on improving and repositioning its hotels in Spain, where it has driven major investments to transform mature destinations such as Magaluf or Torremolinos, and is currently developing an extensive renovation programme in its most emblematic city hotels in the whole of Spain.

Meliá's Executive Vice Chairman and CEO, Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, who has recently completed his first 100 days as the company's chief executive, is ranked 31 in reputation amongst Spanish business leaders, rising from 44th position in 2016. Escarrer expressed his satisfaction with the results for Meliá, stating that 'the MERCO ranking is a reliable annual index of our positioning in Spain's business panorama and of how we are perceived by our stakeholders. At Meliá we are well aware of the responsibility we have to society due to our leadership of the travel industry, an industry which represents 11% of Spanish GDP. This result is incredibly satisfying and encourages us to continue to seek improvement'.

This announcement comes one day after Meliá presented its first quarter results, highlighting, among other things, the high growth in recruitment in Spain, with more than 2,000 new employees hired since the beginning of the year (of a total of more than 10,000 people worldwide). Just yesterday, the 'Most Attractive Employers 2017' survey was also published by Universum, an international company that specializes in the development of employer brands. The survey placed Meliá Hotels International in seventh position in the ranking of the most attractive Spanish companies to work for, according to Business Studies students.