Gabriel Escarrer Juliá: tips on how to flip tourism into an incredible triumph of humanity | Economy | EUROtoday

The story of the historical past of mass tourism in Spain and, additionally, within the worldwide resort context, wouldn’t be full with out a clear reference to the pioneering, profitable and dangerous position performed by Gabriel Escarrer Juliá, who died yesterday in Palma on the age of 89. of age. The businessman who based and presided over the Melià Hotels International chain for 60 years, which has 400 motels in forty nations, was born within the small city of Porreres. He shared his rural and self-taught roots like different profitable colleagues of the primary era of promoters of the solar and seaside enterprise, in Mallorca, because the Nineteen Sixties. One of his six youngsters, Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, heads the administration and management of the corporate, after the resignation of the patriarch in 2016.

From the age of 17, Escarrer led the development of his international firm from the bottom up, first as an worker in a journey company, Wagons Lits Cook, with subsequent expertise in a world operator in London. With the endorsement of the parish priest in his neighborhood in Palma, on the age of 20 he rented a small resort and with its operation he capitalized on the growth of the mannequin in his first firm, Hoteles Mallorquines, wherein he had a minority alliance of different family and friends. .

To meet the avalanche of vacationers looking forward to the solar on the seaside -and one thing more-, the Balearic coast, the Spanish Mediterranean coast and the Canary Islands, lived via an countless period of resort development on the coast and subsequent to the sandy seashores. The leisure enterprise grew to become widespread and gave nice returns – and minimal enterprise failures – with the circulation of summer season tourism, initially from Germany, after paid holidays for staff have been permitted. The so-called smokeless business was born, however, with solely half a yr of exercise, the local weather dominates. The want to increase the opening of motels all year long took Melià to the Caribbean and the Canary Islands.

Spanish hoteliers didn’t cease rising and increasing around the globe with the complicity of the operators who managed the markets of the European nations of origin. The resort growth occurred because of the laxity of the authorities of the Franco dictatorship and official credit.

An obvious openness of the regime was noticed with its marketing campaign Spain is completely different, launched by the Minister of Tourism Manuel Fraga, which boosted the race in vacationer numbers and the variety of open motels. The 1,000th institution within the Balearic Islands, a jewel designed by José Antonio Coderch, the Mar de Palma resort, was acquired by Gabriel Escarrer. The household lives in one other signature development, a big mansion that they commissioned from Oriol Bohigas in Son Vida.

The Escarrers head and management the vast majority of the shareholders of the worldwide resort chain Melià, with institutions in lots of cities around the globe and particularly trip complexes on tropical seashores. Meliá in Cuba with the categorical consent and friendship in direction of the late Fidel Castro and his entourage. In Bali, Indonesia, he opened an unique resort and interacted with General Suharto. Gabriel Escarrer was belligerent with the left-wing events for implementing the ecotax, the vacationer tax, however he loved direct relations with former progressive ministers.

The Meliá de los Escarrer firm is what it’s as a result of in 1996, it carried out a really worthwhile monetary operation by going public, by placing in the marketplace and evaluating its model and its enterprise. In parallel, he managed the capital beneficial properties of the properties in his arms. The chain was going via a fragile interval, it was in danger. Escarrer and his sons, the present president Gabriel and his predecessor, his brother Sebastián, maneuvered in a lucid and daring method. They gained.

Curiously, the pioneer Mallorcan hotelier, so aggressive and happy with his exploits, took the model of a vacationer competitor whose vacationer exercise he built-in, Meliá journeys, created by José Meliá Sinistierra. Escarrer closed a fancy cope with the financier Giancarlo Paretti, a purchase order that introduced him a crown of luxurious motels in Spain. After this integration, he discarded the title that ruled his enterprise on the time, Sol motels.

A figuring out issue within the biography of the winner Escarrer is the acquisition of the Rumasa motels, the Hotasa chain, from the Ruiz Mateos household’s Rumasa holding firm, intervened by the Government of Felipe González. In 1984, in a short lived alliance with the Kuwaiti state fund KIO, Meliá added greater than thirty extra motels to its portfolio. In 2007 it acquired the Innside chain. Meliá has 35,000 seats in Spain out of the entire of 110,000. It has greater than 11,000 workers and maintains its headquarters in Palma.

The final public look of Gabriel Escarrer Juliá – convalescing from successive hospital admissions within the final two years – was final June to inaugurate a stroll in his title in Magaluf, Calvià, an space beneath renovation after its fall on account of extra tourism.

The late hotelier, when in 1988 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Balearic Islands UIB) acknowledged that tourism was one “of the great triumphs of humanity” since “it unites countries, overcomes borders, and promotes social well-being and economic of the people.” The Escarrers already warn about excesses.