Ricardo Martínez Marrero. Barceló Hotels’ director-general of marketing for Latin America and the Caribbean

06 July 2002 6:00am

Mr. Martinez Marrero is Barceló Hotels’ director-general of marketing for Latin America and the Caribbean. In this interview, he talks about plans, projects and main activities his department is embarked on in Latin America.

CND: Mr. Marrero, we’d like to know what your responsibilities in Berceló Hotels are.

A: My chief responsibility is to achieve the highest occupancy rate at the lowest fares. For that purpose, we have a marketing department for Latin America with its three divisions: United States, Latin America and Europe. Its headquarters are in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and from there we lead a team of some 40 marketers scattered all around the globe.

CND: How’s your department laid out?

A: I’m at the top of the line as Director-General of Marketing for Latin America. Phillip van Lieflan comes next as Deputy Director of Marketing, and then come the three marketing divisions for Europe, North America and Latin America headed by Christian Van Manen, Alvaro Lopez de Haro and Gianpaolo Bellomunno respectively.

CND: What are Barceló’s current projects in Cuba and what are the new ones as to hotels to be opened in this country and in neighboring nations?

A: We’ve got a pretty important organization in Cuba. We expect to get between 8 and 10 more hotels in the next four years. Barceló is taking aim at Cuba and we’re working on that. We’re being quite ambitious for the rest of the Caribbean, too. We are the leading hotel chain in the Dominican Republic with 19 resorts. In all, we’ve got 53 establishments in Latin America compared to just 15 hotels we had three years ago.

CND: Besides First Choice’s participation in Barceló Travels, is it also participating in Barceló Hotels?

A: No. First Choice has solely bought Barceló’s Travel Division.

CND: Is there any intention then to boost the English-speaking market?

A: There’s an intention to boost both the British and Canadian market