Sol Meliá began its experience with customer loyalty programmes in 1993 with the Iberia Plus card and then extended its relationship with other airlines throughout the world until it had become a partner in the loyalty programmes of more than twenty other companies.
Currently, Sol Meliá is associated with the following loyalty programmes:
Seeing the numerous advantages of these programmes, including the use of database marketing to raise customer loyalty, providing them with information on a regular basis about new features and attractive offers for specific market segments, Sol Meliá created its own mas loyalty programme in 1994.
The company was thus able to provide clients with a more personalised product, based around earning and exchanging points and also enjoying additional benefits during their hotel stay: free newspaper, priority bookings, express check-in and late check-out, etc. Since then the number of mas members has steadily increased and the programme has also increased its number of partners. At the end of 2008 we had 2,250,000 mas members, a 21% increase over 2007.
Mention must also be made of the mas online service at solmelia.com, allowing members access to their accounts, statements and gift catalogues, etc., making access to realtime information easier and also promoting direct communication with members. E-mail newsletters are also sent to mas members with all the programme’s latest news, offers and features. In 2008 there were 900,000 mas members registered online.
Sol Meliá launched another loyalty programme in Germany and Switzerland in 1997. Club Amigos aimed to attract, get to know and gain the loyalty of travel agents that sell company hotels. After its wide acceptance in these countries, the company introduced the programme in Spain and Portugal in 1998. Since then other countries have gradually been added to the programme:
More than three million guests arrive at our hotels via a loyalty programme. Two out of every three individual guests staying at a Sol Meliá hotel mention a loyalty card when they make a reservation with the company’s central reservations system.
If we add these figures to a database of more than 150 million frequent travellers, both domestic and international, the more than 2,000,000 mas cardholders and 180,000 Club Amigos travel agents, the result is a truly extraordinary evaluation of the influence of these programmes on the sales of our products.
Sol Meliá Hotels & Resorts is the world's largest resort hotel company and the largest hotel chain in Spain in both resort and city hotels. Sol Meliá is third in the European ranking and the twelfth largest hotel chain in the world. As well as being the resort chain in the world it is also the largest hotel company in Iberoamerica and the Caribbean. The company currently operates more than 300 hotels in 30 countries on 4 continents. Sol Meliá includes Melia, Tryp Hotels, Sol Hotels, Gran Melia, Innside, Paradisus Resorts and Me by Melia.