Project Skill: Concept Design
The challenge:
In this second phase, Spanish hotel chain Meliá Hotels International was looking to tap into the growing wellness traveller. The chain already had a successful Yhi Spa brand for the spas within its portfolio, and in some regions, they were reporting up to 80% average spa occupancy. However, they faced the following challenges:
- Inconsistency in terms of offering, brand standards and spa performance
- Disconnect between spa brand and some of the hotel brands as the the same spa brand across multiple hotel brands (a cookie-cutter approach to spas)
- Outdated brand guidelines
- Lack of support to local teams
- Gaining stakeholder buy-in
The approach:
As the hotel chain had over 5 hotel brands – lifestyle, midscale, all-inclusive and luxury – with hotels worldside, we opted for a phased approach, tackling the brand that already had a captive audience that was buying: the Paradisus all-inclusive luxury brand. We systematically worked through the hotel brands, either fine-tuning the spa brand or creating a new wellness brand.
The outcome:
By starting with the hotel brand that was enjoying success with their spa and wellness operations, we were able to gain swift stakeholder buyin through minimal investment and noticeable results. For the lifestyle brands, we opted for wellness offerings with low capital outlay but higher community engagement through forging strategic partnerships.