SOL MELIA CREATES NEW e-BUSINESS DIVISION

Singapore, 09 May 2000

Making the leap into the New Economy, leading European hotel chain Sol

Meliá today announced the creation of a new e-Business division which will

spearhead the group's "e-transformation" into the internet environment. The

new e-business division will focus on streamlining the Group's business

practices, which will include its sales and marketing activities and

procurement processes. Sol Meliá has committed start-up funds of over 30

million euros to the new e-Business division with a view to the eventual

transformation of Sol Meliá to "solmelia.com".

According to Luís del Olmo Piñero, Executive Vice-President of Sol Meliá's

new e-Business Division, this new initiative is part of the group's B2C

strategy (business to consumer), which is aimed at actively promoting the

distribution and direct sales of the group's products and services through

the use of the internet.

He said: "Our aim is to increase our ability to attract and retain

customers not only by improving the loyalty programmes and services that

we provide to current and potential customers, but also by giving them easy

access to extensive information on our hotels and on travel and tourism in

general. With travel being one of the most popular categories for purchases

over the internet, we are confident that this approach will provide

incremental sales for our hotels all over the world and generate greater

revenues for the company as a whole".

On the group's B2B strategy ( Business to Business) Mr del Olmo said: "The

integration and better use of technology will enable us to centralise our

purchasing processes, and create an on-line environment which will allow

us to achieve not only greater levels of efficiency in our procurement

processes, but also increase our negotiating power with suppliers, which

will in turn lead to consequent cost reductions and savings."

As part of the overall "e-transformation" roll out, Sol Meliá will also be

optimising the internal management of its business and the globalisation of

its operating procedures and processes through greater use and development

of in-house Intranet systems.