Highlights:
Melia Hotels International - In the second quarter the company doubled the revenues seen in the previous quarter, and achieved its goals of generating positive EBITDA and stopping cash-burn in June
The cost savings achieved with the successful Contingency Plan allowed the Group to offset by 86% the drop in revenue compared to the first half of 2020, excluding capital gains and impairments
There are currently 253 hotels open, while the company maintains significant flexibility given uncertainty in the outlook for travel
The company sees signs of recovery in Spanish resort destinations in the third quarter, the most important of the year for the industry
The extension of teleworking in most companies in the face of the 5th wave and the absence of MICE business severely affect some urban hotels, especially in Spain and the rest of Europe
Following the resignation of the Director Mr. Juan Arena de la Mora, the Group incorporates a new independent external Director to its Board of Directors, Ms. Cristina Aldamiz-Echevarria Gonzalez de Durana, increasing the percentage of female directors to 36%
Gabriel Escarrer declares that 'The crisis has highlighted the resilience of the travel industry, especially leisure travel, and also Melia's differential strengths as a leader in resort hotels and digital sales and marketing.
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Gabriel Escarrer, Executive Vice President and CEO of Melia Hotels International: 'As I predicted at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, the recovery will begin (at least in the resort segment) in the third quarter of this year, with the results of the first half of the year still very much affected by the pandemic. Our revenues doubled in the second quarter compared to the first, demonstrating the trend towards improvement, although they are still far from the levels seen in 2019, our last 'normal' year (-73.6%). I am particularly pleased to announce that we have a liquidity position of EUR405M, supported by recent asset sales, and that we have achieved our objectives of generating positive EBITDA and positive net cash in June, excluding the capital gains obtained from the sales.
No one can deny the extremely strong impact the crisis has had on our business, nor the commitment to even greater rigour and efficiency it has imposed on us for the coming years. However, great companies are forged in times of great difficulty, and the crisis has also revealed the solid fundamentals on which the tourism industry is based, with the resilience of demand and its sensitivity to progress with vaccinations and improvements in epidemiological data reflected, for example, in the recovery in the number of passengers on flights in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Europe. It has also shown the differential strengths of our Group, and fundamentally our leadership in resort hotels, where the recovery is expected to be strong in the 2nd half of 2021, and our digital and distribution capacity, which gives us an extremely important competitive advantage in a turbulent environment for the industry.'
Melia Hotels International has presented results for the first half of 2021 that are still strongly affected by the pandemic and travel restrictions in different markets and destinations. Progress with vaccination programmes and the reduced severity of recent waves of the virus, however, have radically altered the scenario and point towards an incipient recovery, especially in the Caribbean, China and Mediterranean resort destinations. The results for the period remained negative (-EUR151.2 M), and the Group closed June with an EBITDA of -EUR62.5M excluding capital gains of EUR64M generated by asset sales. However, it did meet its objective of achieving positive EBITDA in June, and it even anticipated to June the objective of generating positive cash, too (which was forecasted for July).
In general, the hotel business continued to improve as restrictions began to ease over the quarter, in line with the previous quarters, and continued to be dominated by domestic travellers in every region. The Caribbean is the first destination to see growth in international visitors, especially Mexico, where the positive vaccination programme in the USA, its top market, has allowed a rapid recovery in demand. The Company remains concerned about the great impact that those urban hotels most dependent on the Corporate and MICE segment in Spain and Europe still have, whose crisis is undoubtedly more structural than in the vacation or hybrid segment (bleisure), in markets such as France ( with hotels such as the Melia La Defense or Innside Charles de Gaulle in Paris), and Spain (in cities such as Cordoba, Leon or Bilbao, and destinations like Tenerife). The impact is also important in Vienna (Austria) and in some destinations in Germany such as Dusseldorf or Munich, which await a prompt resumption of the important trade fairs that usually take place in those cities in autumn.
MELIA HOTELS INTERNATIONAL, S.A. 
