Sol Meliá today announced the introduction of the Innside by Meliá hotel brand in Spain with the signature of an agreement for a new hotel in Barcelona which will become the first hotel for this youthful urban brand outside Germany. In Germany the brand currently operates nine hotels and was recently voted the best hotel brand in the country by the German people.

Innside Barcelona will open in 2011 and will be added to the company’s hotel portfolio under a lease agreement in a deal overseen by the leading hotel, leisure and tourism consultancy, Horwath HTL.

The hotel is designed for the long-stay market in Barcelona and will provide very spacious apartments measuring between 60 and 160 metres squared, all fully adapted to the Innside by Meliá brand standards: urban and avant-garde design, elegant and futuristic. The hotel will be housed in a 19-floor building known as the LC Torre Europa, designed by the prestigious architect Oriol Bohigas and located in the Plaza Europa in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, a new commercial and residential development in the southern suburbs of Barcelona, very near the airport, exhibition centre and Ciutat de Justicia. The Plaza Europa is also becoming a reference point for modernity, architecture and design thanks to the high rise buildings and other constructions that have recently been developed.

The new Innside Barcelona will provide 100 apartments (33 one-room studios, 54 two-room apartments, 10 three-room suites and 3 deluxe 4-room suites), as well as a restaurant, a swimming pool with panoramic views on the hotel roof terrace and a Fitness Centre on the 9th floor.

The new hotels adds to the growth of the brand already announced at the beginning of the year with the agreement for the new Innside Frankfurt, also ensuring the growth levels foreseen by the company as part of its strategy to diversify and strengthen its hotel portfolio using low capital intensive formulas which guarantee financial consistency.