MADRID (Reuters) -Spain’s largest hotel chain Melia expects summer sales in its home country to rise this year compared to 2024, Chief Executive Gabriel Escarrer told shareholders on Thursday, before the company posted a 93% rise in first-quarter profit.
Melia booked a net income of 10.5 million euros ($11.85 million) during the first three months of the year after reducing its debt costs by 9.7 million euros, beating analyst expectations for profit of 6.83 million euros.
Leisure travel demand remains strong in Spain, with tourist numbers rising 5.7% year-on-year in the first quarter after a record 94 million tourists were registered in 2024, according to the latest official data.
Some airlines and the travel booking system Amadeus have warned of a slowdown in global air traffic compared to last year caused by weather disruptions in the United States and the introduction of trade barriers.
“Despite the caution we must maintain in the current turbulent environment, we continue to see no signs of a slowdown in reservations for 2025,” Escarrer said during the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
During Easter week in late April, the beginning of the high season in Spain, Melia recorded a 27% rise in revenue from a year ago, with a double-digit increase in the number of guests and average room prices, Escarrer added.
Revenue reached 444.5 million euros, below the 458.05 million euros estimated by analysts polled by LSEG but 1% higher than in the first-quarter of 2024, which last year included Easter week.
Melia expects a single-digit increase in revenue per room in 2025 as the company focuses on luxury accommodation to better benefit from the tourism boom.
During the first quarter, Melia’s revenue per room in Spain rose 9%, the highest increase among the regions where the chain operates and above the 6.5% average across all its hotels.
($1 = 0.8864 euros)
(Reporting by Corina Pons, editing by Inti Landauro, Charlie Devereux and Kirsten Donovan)
