The Spanish hotel chain Melia Hotels has announced its return in partnership with MHG (Management Hospitality Group), a company led by Karim Kamoun and owned by Voyages 2000 and Tarek Cherif’s Alliance One Group.
The partnership, the result of lengthy negotiations, will begin on May 1 with the El Mansour Hotel in Mahdia (owned by the Cherif family, 307 rooms, fully renovated). Four additional properties are planned between 2027 and 2029 in Tabarka, Djerba, Monastir, and Tunis, with an overall goal of 3,000 rooms.
The Melia brand will thus be reintroduced in Tunisia, likely under a franchise agreement, after a 25-year absence. In fact, the leading Spanish chain had entered into a partnership in 1996 with El Mouradi Hotels (17 hotels from the outset) and was aiming at that time for some twenty hotels in the country, before changing its mind and leaving the destination following the breakup with the El Mouradi chain.
Today, Melia is announcing a measured expansion, which seems to echo the conclusion of its then-CEO, José Manuel Navarro, who told us in 1998 in the magazine Profession Tourisme: “The experience in Tunisia has convinced us that we should proceed more slowly, adding only two to three hotels per year.”
LM