Meliá honors quality leader Juan Carlos Mesa.

Meliá’s top executive, Gabriel Cánaves Picornell, presents the award to Juan Carlos Mesa. Photo: Taken from the Facebook profile Meliá Las Antillas.

The 2023 edition of the Meliá Distingue ceremony once again marked a particularly emotional day for the workforce of this prestigious Spanish company in Cuba, where it arrived in the late 1980s to form the first joint venture in the Greater Antilles.

The day before, the annual event took place at the Meliá Varadero hotel, where the emblematic quality leader, Juan Carlos Mesa Alfonso, of the Meliá Las Antillas facility collective, one of the active founders of a site that will turn 25 years old next March 1, was awarded.

«I am very happy with this new recognition. I’ve been in tourism for more than four decades, since my beginnings in 1981, and this is very comforting,» he said emotionally.

Juan Carlos is over 60, an easy calculation to make from the information provided. That is not, however, the age he looks. The matancero born in the Simpson neighborhood moves with the cadence of Miguel Failde’s danzones, with the fluency of the rumba.

«Agility is fundamental for a gastronome. It is a demanding job because of the physical expenditure in so many hours and being very repetitive. In my case, I have turned my smile into an instrument, it helps me a lot. The other thing is the enjoyment I find in what I do, perhaps because of the respect that serving others inspires in me».

This may explain why, as he covers the more than 10 kilometers between Cárdenas and the beautiful seaside resort, he has the same idea every day: «To use all his tools to satisfy the customer, because that’s why he chose us. Those who come know even of our limited resources and just want to be well served.

At one of the tables near the swimming pool, two Canadian tourists place their order, around them there are French speakers and a little further on I hear an Italian accent. Juan Carlos notes with the tranquility of someone who is fluent in six languages.

«If at the beginning it was enough to know one language, now it’s not. It’s good to express oneself and that there are no communication barriers.

«I feel relief when I speak about my country in the language of others to clarify for them, when they ask, the distorted image with which they arrive.»

«If his aptitude as a clerk is combined with his polyglot skills, Juan Carlos enjoys a competitive advantage. That’s why he is usually present at events that require personnel of his stature, such as the World Cocktail Championship, or to offer his knowledge when consulted,» says Estrella Sanchez, secretary general of the union bureau.

«You can ask him about any topic in the world of tourism, in which he is a professor, or about anything you can think of. His culture is very broad», a view supported by Yoel Luis Hernández, assistant general manager of Meliá Las Antillas, «he is an example of self-improvement. She has reached a high professional level.

«Tourism is my life and I devote myself to it, in that desire to try to exercise this profession with the rigor required to be a clerk in Varadero, a destination where we are required to do things right every day, apply what we have learned in school and, above all, to combine techniques with love for work, Juan Carlos assures.»

This is his advice, particularly addressed to the generation of young people now in the sector, and also to others in training, such as his granddaughter, the youngest in a family linked to the leisure industry, in which his daughter remains, as did his wife, now retired.

A friend of books, his best accommodation, Juan Carlos is convinced that when we work with clients we have to go the extra mile, «because there is no second chance for a first impression,» he says before hurrying off to pick up another order.

Other employees of the Meliá Las Antillas hotel also received the award. Photo: Taken from the Meliá Las Antillas Facebook profile.

The Meliá Distingue was created to reward the excellent performance of the men and women employees of this international chain and is held at the end of the year, in each of the destinations where the Spanish company is present, united in Cuba with a joint venture, from which the Sol Palmeras hotel was created in 1990.

The initiative is a very good way of recognizing those who day by day overcome the difficult exercise of making tourism in a country like this one, which has in this strategic sector its perfect target. External factors such as these are overcome by workers like Juan Carlos Mesa, who take tourism to luxury dimensions, from their professionalism.

Written by Eva Luna Acosta Armiñán.