Who is Abel Matutes Juan, the man from Ibiza who built the Palladium empire?

Abel Matutes Juan was born on 31 October 1941 in Ibiza. Before building one of the Balearic Islands' best-known hotel groups, he started out in local politics: mayor of Ibiza from 1970 to 1971, he then became a senator for Ibiza and Formentera from 1977 to 1982, and a member of Congress for the Balearic Islands from 1982 to 1985.

In the late 1960s the Matutes family moved into hospitality on Ibiza and opened its first two hotels. The business, whose founding is dated to 1970, marked its 50th anniversary in February 2020. It was out of that activity that the Fiesta Hotels & Resorts brand emerged over the following years.

Through the 1970s, the group's development spread from Ibiza to Menorca and Mallorca. Its common brand, known as Fiesta Hotel Group from 2000, was renamed Palladium Hotel Group in November 2012.

Alongside his business interests, Abel Matutes Juan built a European career. He served three terms as a European Commissioner between 1986 and 1994: responsible for credit and investments and for SME policy from 1986 to 1989, then for external relations from January 1989 to December 1992, and finally for transport and energy from January 1993. He resigned from the Commission on 21 April 1994 to lead the Partido Popular's list in the European elections of 12 June 1994.

His political career peaked at national level: he was Spain's foreign minister from 6 May 1996 to 27 April 2000, in José María Aznar's first government.

The handover of the family business came in January 2020, announced on 6 February 2020. His son, Abel Matutes Prats, CEO since 2006, became chairman of Palladium Hotel Group. Abel Matutes Juan kept the chairmanship of the family holding company, Grupo Empresas Matutes, which owns the hotel group.

At 84, he remains a leading figure on the islands. On 23 April 2026, he received the honorary award at the Premios Onda Cero Ibiza y Formentera 2026, at a ceremony at the Teatro Pereyra in Ibiza. He marked the occasion with a line in Spanish that translates roughly as: I'll be here for as long as I live.

Photo credit: Abel Matutes as a member of the Commission of the European Communities, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Christian Lambiotte, audiovisual service of the European Commission.

This portrait was prepared with AI assistance, then cross-checked, verified and edited by our editorial team, who take full editorial responsibility for it. Facts verified on 18 August 2026.