The hotel continues to be an extension of the house and office'

With 16 years at the helm of different positions at Intercontinental Hotels Group, Marcos Mello feels that he has the company's DNA in his blood. But it has been the 30 years of experience in the sector that have given him the ability to overcome the comings and goings of an industry as complex as Brazil.

by Lyda Durango

He is a manager, salesman and even a public relations officer. His ability to work as a team has allowed him to get in touch with the different areas of the hotel business. And at this point he does not hesitate to affirm that to achieve this "it was fundamental to know better the soul and psychology of the human being". His training in economics, hotel marketing management, finance, international trade and social communication have given him the tools to successfully navigate each position occupied.

With around 13 different positions in his career, Marcos has the word marketing engraved in his management and an example of this goes back to the years in which the 70s ended. There he participated in the implementation and launch of the first luxury hotel in Brazil: the Rio Palace Hotel, at a time when this segment was a weirdo for the market. The year was 1980 and the move should be really shocking to enter on the right foot. "Because it is an independent hotel, our marketing move when launching ourselves into the international market as an independent hotel was to bring Frank Sinatra as a guest of the hotel," recalls Marcos. Explains.

The move was so successful that after that, the Rio Palace Hotel became the hotel of choice for the stars and the CEOs of the main national and international companies in Brazil. Marcos spent nearly ten years at the hotel holding positions such as assistant manager, banquet manager, lodging manager, social communications manager, covering press and public relations, and national sales manager. As an assistant manager he participated in the creation for the first time in the country of executive standards. "A kind of what is today the Executive Floor Club of the hotels. The idea was always to anticipate the needs of the most demanding customers," he recalls.

The seller hotelier

- Publicidad -

With this experience in tow, he arrived at IHG in 1992 to occupy the position of regional sales director of the international sales office in Sao Paulo, having among his responsibilities to sell the Intercontinental Rio, at that time the only Intercontinental hotel in Brazil. He then participated for three years in the implementation and opening project of the Intercontinental Hotel Sao Pablo to which he joined as sales and marketing director and currently holds the position of regional sales director of the Brazilian sales office.

But really what does it mean to sell the hotel chain with the most rooms worldwide? "It's a tremendous responsibility," Says Marcos without hesitation. "But I also feel a lot of pride as well as an unequivocal motivation," he explains. In total there are 3,800 hotels in more than 100 countries including 16 properties in Brazil. But fortunately IHG's corporate culture has acted as an important catalyst for Marcos' virtues as a professional, before which the only result is the good performance of the chain in the Rio de Janeiro country. "IHG hotels have a very important characteristic that is to give direction to the professional but at the same time a great autonomy of action so that we achieve the best results for the company," explains Mr. Mello.

But if there is a challenge to which Marcos is responding adequately in the current times, it is that of the figure of sales manager. This new challenge for modern hoteliers is a reality to which this professional is responding in spades. "In all the previous positions I always worked with interrelation between different people and cultures, which is still a kind of sales, where the marketed product was the ideas leaving a win-win result," explains Marcos. With this approach and the conviction that whatever the times "the hotel is still an extension of the house and the office", Marcos has managed to put the different IHG brands in the mind of the Brazilian consumer.
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Express growth

The Rio de Janeiro hotel market is going through a great time and mid-level hospitality is occupying the preference of investors and operators. However, for a hotel chain like IHG not everything is rosy, despite the good performance of brands such as Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza. "One of the main difficulties for IHG is that the investor invests in safety at the international level," says Marcos."The national requirements in legislation do not require equipment or parameters of fire evaluation at the international level and that ends up making the cost of the work more expensive," he adds.

Overcoming the difficulties, the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands have been able to break through "as a way to meet the growing demand for hotels in the mid-scale segment," says Mr. de Mello. And the timing couldn't be more accurate for this brand. With a new consumer class in Brazil looking for service, a good cost-benefit ratio and the security of a world-renowned hotel brand, IHG seems to be at its best in the Rio market.

But Holiday Inn is just a sample of the way the chain adapts to the new demands of the sector. And professionals like Marcos make it possible that in markets where independent hospitality fills much of the offer, a hotel chain gains the ground that IHG has achieved so far.