Palma de Mallorca, SPAIN and Toronto, CANADA (July 27, 2010) -- Sol Meliá, the third largest chain in Europe, and VFM Leonardo, the leader in online visual content distribution for hotels, today announced that they will be working together to strengthen the online visual presentation of Sol Meliá's hotels through enhanced photo distribution and online merchandising.
Sol Meliá has adopted VFM Leonardo's VScape® Digital Asset Management System to distribute photos to online channels for its 300 properties. The VScape platform ensures that they have consistent and accurate photos on Sol Meliá's own channels and VFM Leonardo's VNetwork™ channels.
Sol Meliá also endorses VFM Leonardo's VBrochure™ Online Merchandising System for individual properties to syndicate their rich media (virtual tours, video and Flash presentations) in VFM Leonardo's industry-leading Multimedia Viewer across the largest online media network for the global travel industry.
"We are looking forward to seeing Sol Meliá properties adopt VBrochure and begin enhancing their online listings with richer visual content. We are confident that a richer visual experience for online shoppers will translate to increased bookings," saidDavid Wright, Vice President of Hotel Distribution & E-Commerce.
"We are delighted to be helping Sol Meliá make the unique and unforgettable experience their properties offer guests begin online. With an enhanced visual experience, we expect Sol Meliá and its properties will set themselves apart and inspire more travel shoppers to book," said Paolo Boni, President and CEO of VFM Leonardo.
Sol Meliá and VFM Leonardo will be working together to provide educational campaigns for regional representatives and individual properties on how to take advantage of online merchandising with VBrochure. Properties that wish to take advantage of VBrochure can do so immediately. More information about VBrochure is available here.
About Sol Meliá
Sol Meliá was founded in 1956 in Palma de Mallorca (Spain) and is one of the world's largest resort hotel chains, as well as Spain's leading hotel chain in both the business and leisure markets. The company currently employs more than 33,000 people worldwide with staff from over 90 different countries and provides more than 300 hotels in 26 countries on 4 continents under its brands: Gran Meliá, Meliá, ME by Meliá, Innside by Meliá, Tryp, Sol, Paradisus and Sol Meliá Vacation Club. www.solmelia.com
Sol Meliá is the only travel company included in the exclusive "FTSE4GoodIbex" responsible investment stock market index and is a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact. In 2008 the company approved its Global Sustainability Policy and in 2009 it was named the first "Biosphere Hotel Company" by the Responsible Tourism Institute, supported by UNESCO. That same year the company was also awarded the Prince Felipe Award for Tourism Excellence for the second time.
About VFM Leonardo
VFM Leonardo is a technology leader in online visual content management and syndication for the hotel industry. VFM Leonardo's VScape® and VBrochure™ products leverage the syndication capabilities of the VNetwork™, the most universally accepted and largest online visual content syndication network for the global travel industry. VFM Leonardo offers the most effective digital asset management and online merchandising systems available today with over 1,000,000 visual images (photos, virtual tours and videos) for 90,000 hotels worldwide currently in distribution across the VNetwork. All four global distribution systems (GDSs) - Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, Worldspan - as well as Pegasus source hotel visual content through VScape. Tens of thousands of travel-related channels including online travel agencies, travel research and supplier web sites, search portals; Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Yahoo! Travel, Kayak, Google and more also source visual content through VScape. For more information about VFM Leonardo, visit vfmleonardo.com. Follow us on Twitter at @VFMLeonardo.
