Ecostars certification helps Meliá Hotels secure recogntion as most sustainable tourism company

Meliá Hotels International is being hailed as the most sustainable company in the tourism sector by TIME magazine, designating the Spanish hotel group as the top pick in the ‘World's Most Sustainable Companies of 2024’.

The TIME announcement comes at the same time that Meliá secured its commitment to sustainability through Ecostars, an internationally recognised certification that evaluates and rewards sustainable practices in the hotel industry.

The globally-recognised Ecostars standard evaluates the sustainability of hotels, considering factors related to environmental management and energy efficiency, such as energy consumption, use of green energy, water management, waste management, carbon emissions and sustainable purchasing.

The inaugural list includes 500 leading companies from more than 30 countries. Meliá Hotels International obtained the highest score in the tourism sector worldwide and occupies 114th place in the global ranking among all industries. The hotel group has also positioned itself in eighth place among the 25 Spanish companies that appear in the ranking.

27 hotels in Asia have already achieved ratings ranging from certified to Silver level. The highest-ranked hotels within the region are Meliá Bali and Meliá Purosani Yogyakarta, both in Indonesia. Meliá Makassar and INNSiDE Yogyakarta, also in Indonesia, achieved a Bronze rating, along with Meliá Vinpearl Hue and Meliá Vinpearl Phu Ly in Vietnam and Meliá Koh Samui in Thailand.

Gabriel Escarrer, president and Chief Executive of Meliá Hotels International notes "Having an assessment as solid as Ecostars across our entire portfolio in ownership, rental and management, not only strengthens our reputation, but also directly enhances our business results, since, as a recent study conducted by Booking.com shows, a visible positioning in sustainability is valued by customers and translates into an increase in bookings.”

For Meliá Hotels International, another strong point of the Ecostars certification is its global nature, as it is used and recognised all over the world. The portfolio assessed by Ecostars is distributed geographically as follows: 160 hotels in Europe, 60 in the Americas, 40 in Asia and 10 in Africa.

Earlier this year the group was recognised as one of the top-performing hotel companies globally according to the latest Sustainability Yearbook by S&P Global. The leading financial ratings and market analysis provider ranked Meliá in third place and the first European-origin hotel company in the ranking. The Sustainability Yearbook 2024 was based on the 2023 Corporate Sustainability Assessment, an annual evaluation of companies’ sustainability practices, which covers over 9,400 companies from around the world.

Image. Melia Bali