[5] The origins of the company reach back to 1956, when the then-21-year-old Gabriel Escarrer Juliá leased the Altair Hotel in Palma, Majorca.

[6] Over the subsequent years Escarrer took advantage of the island's increasing popularity as a tourist destination for package holidaymakers, adding further properties to the portfolio of his company, Hoteles Mallorquines.

A 1996 split of the company into two separate businesses, one for hotel ownership (Inmotel) and another for management (Sol Meliá, which listed on the Bolsa de Madrid), was reversed three years later amid major consolidation in the industry.

[8] The following year brief takeover talks were held with Hilton International,[6] but Sol Meliá instead chose to make an acquisition of its own, paying €360 million for smaller peer Tryp Hotels.

Rights to the Tryp brand were sold to Wyndham Worldwide in 2010, but Meliá continues to own and operate the hotels under a licensing agreement.

[citation needed] Meliá Hotels received strong criticism because of hosting a tribute to the caudillo Francisco Franco in 2015.

[1] In June 2017, Meliá Hotels International confirmed Spanish badminton player, Carolina Marín as their new brand ambassador.