Sol Meliá and LRA Worldwide Launch Global Brand Assurance Program

Sol Meliá, the 15th-largest hotel chain in the world and the leading Spanish hotel and resort company, has launched a comprehensive brand assurance evaluation program across its global portfolio of hotel and resort brands.

To execute the program, Sol Meliá has partnered with LRA Worldwide, Inc., a leading firm in the design and development of performance measurement and quality assurance programs for the hospitality and lodging industries.

The brand assurance program is a crucial part of Sol Meliá‘s ‘brand equity’ strategy for all of its various brands. The process began with a series of brand ‘boot camps’ facilitated by LRA to help further define each brand and how that offering is delivered at the property level. The evaluation program is designed to measure the effectiveness of the implementation process and delivery of a ‘branded’ guest experience at each property.

‘It is crucial to the continuing growth of our company that we consistently deliver what we promise across more than 28 countries and 300 properties,’ explained André Gerondeau, Executive Vice President, Hotels for Sol Meliá. ‘LRA brings the right blend of hotel operational experience, brand sensibility and data collection expertise as our partner in this program.’

Each of Sol Meliá‘s hotel and resort brands - including Gran Meliá, Meliá, ME, Innside, Tryp, Sol and Paradisus - has a customized evaluation protocol designed to measure its specific brand attributes. In addition, there are a set of common standards that are measured across all brands. All of the data is available at the corporate and property level via LRA’s proprietary online quality management reporting tool, TouchPoint Manager (TM). All reporting is available in both English and Spanish.

‘Sol Meliá understands that the strength of a brand is in consistently delivering value and quality,’ said John Roberto, LRA’s Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Quality Assurance. ‘Once we helped Sol Meliá define their brands, our charge was to distill those brand elements into measurable line items to ensure consistent execution.’

LRA provides a variety of branding, standards development and performance measurement services to seven of the top ten hotel companies in the world. In all, LRA’s Quality Assurance practice conducts nearly 13,000 site visits and evaluations each year, either as a stand-alone offering or as an integrated part of an overall Customer Experience Management project. In addition to its work with other lodging clients such as Hyatt Hotels Corporation, IHG, Sofitel Luxury Hotels, Grupo Posadas, Pestana Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Wyndham Worldwide, LRA works with industry leaders in Sports, Conference Centers, Timeshare, Gaming, Homebuilding, Retail and Travel.

The brand assurance program was officially launched in June at the Gran Meliá Colon in Seville, Spain. Since then, LRA has conducted an additional 190 evaluations, with a full complement of evaluations scheduled for 2010.