Meliá creates 240 jobs as it readies to open five-star hotel in Chiang Mai

Hundreds of hospitality workers in Chiang Mai and across Thailand are vying to secure jobs at Meliá Chiang Mai as the hotel prepares to start welcoming guests in the final quarter of this year.

Owned by Thailand’s real estate group Asset World Corporation and launched by Meliá Hotels International, the 260-key hotel will open with about 150 employees, and will employ a total of 240 people in light of its construction and pre-opening phase.

Meliá Chiang Mai will be the first five-star hotel to open in Chiang Mai this year

The opening of Meliá Chiang Mai presents an opportunity for hotel employees, especially those displaced by the Covid-19 pandemic, to secure roles spanning F&B, housekeeping, spa and wellness, sales and marketing, human resources, engineering, and many more.

“We have already received hundreds and hundreds of job applications from people in Chiang Mai and across Thailand, and admittedly, we have not yet done very much in terms of advertising positions and hosting recruitment drives,” said general manager Edward Snoeks.

He said the hotel project not only helps to create jobs and stimulate the local economy, but also provides a morale boost for the battered local tourism industry.

With many hotel owners putting hotel projects on hold amid the current uncertainty, Meliá Chiang Mai will be the first five-star hotel to open in Chiang Mai this year.

According to Snoeks, more than 99 per cent of the hotel’s employees will be made up of Thai nationals, with the only two foreigners being the F&B director and himself.

Ahead of the hotel’s opening, staff will be trained on the stringent anti-Covid safety protocols in place under the hotel group’s Stay Safe with Meliá programme that was developed in collaboration with certification, inspection and testing company Bureau Veritas, shared Snoeks.

With international recovery still on shaky ground, the domestic market will remain a major focus for Meliá Chiang Mai for the foreseeable future. But, at the same time, the hotel is also preparing for the eventual upturn. Already, it has lined up a programme called PengYou by Meliá which specifically targets leisure travellers from China.

Since July, Thailand has embarked on a phased reopening plan to reopen to vaccinated visitors without quarantine, in a bid to revive its economy. Chiang Mai is among several cities and provinces set to join the plan later this year, following the reopening of Phuket under the Sandbox reopening scheme as well as Koh Samui as part of the Samui Plus programme.

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