Sercotel presents its new strategy and brand image

Sercotel Hotel Group has announced in Fitur a significant growth in its billing during 2022. The company ended the year with an aggregate billing of 93.6 million euros, which represents an increase of 78% compared to 2021 and 33% more. than in 2019. In addition, the group has planned to reach 115 million euros in 2023, with a growth of 24% compared to 2022 and 64% above 2019.

For José Rodríguez, CEO of Sercotel, “2022 has been a great year, where we have registered a record billing, well above the levels of 2019, mainly motivated by the growth dynamics of the company and by the optimization work of all the lines of the income statement.

In fact, thanks to these data, Sercotel has already compensated 80% of the losses caused by COVID-19.

New image

Beyond these optimistic data, Rodríguez has taken advantage of the fair to present the company’s new image and its new claim “Welcome to your best”, a work that comes after two years of work. Added to this is an important technological transformation, which has included the renewal of CRS (Sabre), PMS (Opera Cloud) or CRM (Salesforce).

“We completely transformed the company, thinking of a new future for Sercotel, and convinced that this change will be the engine of progress that drives our growth and places us at the level of the large national and international chains”, stated Rodríguez.

For his part, Nico Lleixá, commercial and marketing corporate director of Sercotel, assures that the new claim (Welcome to your best) and company image aims to bring out the best version of the guest, but also of the employee. “At Sercotel we want to be an energy channel. We place people in the foreground and we guarantee all those small details that provide the necessary calm and disconnection so that they can focus on giving their best version”, Lleixá points out.

This positioning is accompanied by a new logo that, as described by Lleixà, “transmits closeness, stability and positive projection. We seek to combine elegance with freshness and simplicity; in a positive and transparent logo; In addition to transmitting expertise and Sercotel’s own DNA”.

Strategic business evolution

Added to the new brand identity and technological transformation is an evolution of the business strategy, focused on modernizing its standards and processes around an improved customer experience. In this sense, the company has presented an evolution in its brand architecture, where Sercotel becomes the main commercial name of the group and discards, for the moment, the secondary brands Kalma and Essentia, which do not have a development plan short term.

Likewise, and as of January 2023, the hotel company evolves its business model and focuses on the brand promise that Sercotel offers, thus improving the service that the company provides to its customers. This will mean that the group focuses on three types of hotel management: operation, management and the Quality System (QS) program, to abandon the hotel consortium model and be more demanding with the link between hotel assets and brand promise.

Likewise, with the technological transformation they intend to increase Revenue and capture “a better percentage of the pie,” says José Rodríguez. “Our relationship with the OTAs is very good, but obviously we intend to increase direct sales,” he pointed out. “Even so, OTAs help us reach territories, segments and channels where we cannot otherwise reach.”

Likewise, Rodríguez is optimistic for this new year. “The level of reserves for the summer of 2023 is above the level of reserves that we had at this point in 2019,” he points out.

Three million investment in the relaunch project

Added to the investment in the brand, the third axis of Sercotel’s transformation is technology, 100% integrated into its business model. With an investment of three million euros, the company has completely renewed its technological platform, in a project that it has called Sercotel Cloud, with a clear commitment to the use of cloud solutions.

Just launched a new website which, with Sercotel’s renewed image and tone, offers an improved, more dynamic and visual browsing experience. It has renewed all its systems, from the PMS, which manages its hotels; to the CRS, which manages its sale; and has strengthened its CRM technology to achieve a robust, scalable and innovative customer platform.

Expansion plan and new additions

In parallel, Sercotel has continued with its expansion plan and has closed 2022 with the addition of 11 new hotels to its portfolio, 10 of them under management / operation regime, and 1 hotel under its Quality System (QS) program.

“These incorporations are one more step in the deployment of our growth plan that we outlined in 2020, and in which we set ourselves the objectives of reaching 100 hotels in direct operation by 2025 and doubling our number of QS hotels. Looking ahead to 2023, our goal is to incorporate 12 new hotels in the different management, operation or QS models”, José Rodríguez has advanced.

Currently, the company has 104 accommodations, of which 47 are managed or operated, 21 under the QS program and 36 associates. Likewise, it also has signed 10 hotels under construction that will open their doors in the coming years.

Hotels incorporated in 2022 under management and operation:

• Sercotel Caspe (Barcelona)
• Sercotel Rosellón (Barcelona)
• Sercotel Granada Suites
• Sercotel Cordoba Delicias
• Sercotel Seville Guadalquivir Suites
• Sercotel Amistad Murcia
• Sercotel Aura Algeciras
• Sercotel Puerto de la Luz (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria)
• Sercotel Cordoba Medina Azahara
• Sercotel Arrahona Sabadell

Hotel incorporated in 2022 managed under the QS program:

• Sercotel Jardines de Uleta (Vitoria)

Lastly, the company has also reported an increase in its human team, with 900 workers, 27% more than in 2021. This is due to the hiring to cover the needs of the new hotels that have opened during 2022 and the incorporation of new specialized profiles in all areas of the corporate office team.