Gabriel Escarrer Juliá, founder of the Meliá Hotels International hotel chain, died this Tuesday in Palma at the age of 89, as confirmed by sources close to the family to the EFE agency.
In June of last year he resigned from the non-executive presidency of the Board of Directors of the hotel entity that he founded in Mallorca in 1956 and was appointed honorary president. Escarrer Juliá is considered one of the main players in the hotel sector, due to the development of his company, directly linked to vacation tourism and which currently exceeds 300 establishments.
Since 2009, the company has been led by his son, Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, who has served as CEO and for a year, also as president.
“Compelling gift”
His professional career was marked by being a “convincing gift,” as he reflected in his memoirs and collects this information published by El Confidencial. He claimed that he knew “where the devil sleeps”, due to “the imperative need to always have as much information as possible when embarking on an operation”.
In 2015, the State Federation of Memory Forums complained to the hotel company that it did not accept to host an event of the Francisco Franco Foundation in one of its establishments in Madrid, to which the hotel company responded that “there are many events every day.” ; We are aseptic when it comes to managing spaces,” according to Infolibre published.
Precisely, the Franco family sold the parking lot of the Meliá Princesa hotel in Madrid to a vulture fund based in the Cayman Islands, as explained in this information.
Escarrer Juliá turned Meliá into a reference chain among international hotel companies, now run by the second generation. In recent months, the company has taken advantage of the rise in prices to strengthen its results. In 2023, the hotel company’s profit exceeded 117 million euros (6% more than a year before) and its turnover increased by more than 14%, above 1.9 billion.
Now, Melia is focusing on luxury and high-end hotels and on the agreement it has reached with former tennis player Rafael Nadal to launch the joint brand Zel.
The Escarrers’ wealth management has not been free of controversy either, for example, for managing their investments from companies in a corporate network that connects Luxembourg with the tax havens of Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles), Panama and Gibraltar.
In 2016, it emerged that the Escarrer family took advantage of the tax amnesty promoted by the Government of Mariano de Rajoy and maintained opaque companies in Panama since 1985, through the Mossack Fonseca office. A practice carried out until 2012, when he regularized his situation.
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