Meliá to Automate Business Processes After an Agreement with UiPath

Meliá Hotels International is beginning to reap the first fruits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) together with UiPath and becoming a pioneer in the deployment of RPA technology in the hotel industry.

The company has carried out a profound digital transformation of its sales and marketing channels ever since 2016 (with an investment of 140 million euros) and introduced RPA in 2019 as part of a strategy to digitalise its most important processes.

The implementation of the UiPath RPA platform at Meliá is designed to improve customer service and the working day of employees and driven by the "Robotics 360" program, one of the cornerstones of the Digital Hub created by the company as part of its "Be Digital 360” global digital transformation program.

The program leverages the UiPath platform to separate transactional processes from decision-making processes and make transactional processes easier, especially in the back office. The deployment of RPA leaves the transactional processes in the hands of specialist teams and allows management teams to focus on making decisions that add value to the business.

This year the company is gradually implementing RPA in different areas such as credit and insurance, hotels, administration, or HR, with positive results, an example being the use of RPA in the delivery of credit agreements, shortening a process that used to take months to just a few weeks.

The use of the UiPath RPA platform currently focuses on corporate processes, although some pilot projects have also been implemented to automate processes in hotels. The program started with an initial focus on Spain and America, although the company roadmap foresees its extension to all geographical areas in the medium term.

We believe in the digital transformation of the hotel industry and are convinced that Robotic Process Automation will improve company results and the daily work of our team. To achieve this, we will democratise automation within the organisation by inviting employees to proactively propose processes they believe can be automated. In the medium term, many of our employees will be able to have the support of a software robot in their daily duties. The combination of RPA solutions with artificial intelligence will allow us to achieve even greater automation capacity.

Carlos Gonzalez, VP Strategic Planning at Meliá

Our work with Meliá Hotels International is very inspiring because we are seeing a fantastic combination of tradition and transformation. With a solid history behind it, Meliá is now a pioneer in the digital transformation of the hotel industry, and we are proud to be their partner of choice for the deployment of RPA.

Franck López, UiPath Regional Vice President Iberia