Club Med's new phase of expansion

Club Med will inaugurate 24 new villages in the space of the next three years – seven in 2018, seven in 2019 and 10 in 2020.

Henri Giscard d’Estaing, president of Club Med, has clearly indicated that it is the association with Chinese conglomerate Fosun, which became the major shareholder in Club Med in 2015, which made these new investments possible.

For many years, the portfolio of the French luxury ‘all-inclusive’ resort chain remained rooted at just under 70 properties, numbering around a hundred by the 1990s.

Asked whether he felt the Chinese group’s involvement would result in a dilution of Club Med’s unique identity, the president replied that the conglomerate had made this acquisition due to the strength of the brand.

“Fosun did not put pressure on us to change our image or our practices,” he said. “Our Chinese customers have the same expectations as other customers. For them, the gastronomic offer is as important as for our traditional clientele.

“They expect to find Chinese cuisine in our villages, but they also want to taste other culinary varieties, which we offer them by arranging, in our buffets in Asia, ‘stations’ of Japanese, Korean, Thai, French, and, of course, Chinese food,” he continued. “The difference with North American customers, for example, is that the Chinese want to try all the activities during their stay.”

Chinese has become the biggest international market of Club Med and the second in importance, after France. “We welcomed more than 200,000 Chinese customers last year, and we want to triple this figure within two years,” Giscard d’Estaing declared.

To reach this objective, the Club will launch two resort complexes in China, aimed at attracting an urban clientele with little time for holidays: Anji, near Shanghai, and Changli, close to Beijing. With the new concept, ‘Joy View’, Club Med will offer residents of the two Chinese metropoles the opportunity to get away for a few days.

In spring 2016, the Club also inaugurated two other properties in China: the seaside village of Sanya, on the Hainan island in the south of the island, and the mountain village of Beidahu, in the province of Jilin.

Henri Giscard d’Estaing, president, Club Med

Xavier Mufraggi, president of Club Med - North America and Carolyne Doyon, vice-president, Club Med - Canada & Mexico

Sales up in snow villages

Many ski villages feature in the list of new properties – beginning with Samoëns, in Savoie, which will open its doors in December 2017. Situated an hour away from Geneva, this 420-room property will give access to two ski resorts: Grand Massif and Flaine. Also look out for another snow village, Tomamu, on the island of Hokkaido, in Japan, and the opening of the Arc 1600, in Savoie.

Demand for snow villages has grown remarkably in recent years, particularly in international markets. Last winter, Club Med welcomed 685,000 customers, up 8.1 per cent over the winter of 2016. Almost three-quarters (71 per cent), or 488,000 of them, were ‘international’ customers.

A quarter (25 per cent) came from North America. “Today, we sell more ski passes in North America than when we were operating two snow villages,” said Xavier Mufraggi, president of Club Med North America.

This increase is also visible in Canada. “Today, our sales for ski packages in the Alps figure in the thousands, whereas a few years ago, we were talking more about hundreds,” added Carolyne Doyon, vice-president, Club Med, Canada and Mexico. “The inauguration of new air services from Montreal to Geneva and Lyon helped us a lot.”

In terms of revenue, the sales of Club Med for winter 2017 rose to 875 million euros ($1.26 billion Canadian), an increase of 6.5 per cent, compared to 804 million euros ($1.15 billion) for the winter of 2017. Revenues in the Americas region amounted to 189 million euros ($272 million), an increase of 18.8 per cent over the winter of 2016.

As to whether Club Med planned to open a village in Quebec, Mufraggi indicated that he was working on four projects in North America – including two in Canada.

“We would love to have a village in Quebec, and the idea of moving to the Petite Rivière Saint-François Massif is still being studied, but we have other proposals as well. Four years ago, we were looking for sites in Canada. Today, it is the ski areas that contact us, and make proposals to us. We have applications in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.”

Cefalu

The upscale continues

As part of its upmarket strategy, the Club will open the first ‘5 Trident’ village in Europe, in the summer of 2018. It will be located in Cefalu, Sicily, on a site where the Club has already operated a complex, until 2005.

On the occasion of the inauguration last week of the new CREACTIVE area of Opio, in Provence, Mufraggi commented, “this is a destination that will appeal to Quebeckers particularly, and we will take it into account in our marketing campaigns in Canada.”

Last December, Club Med inaugurated a ‘5 Trident’ space of 33 suites in the heart of the Brazilian village of Rio das Pedras, located 1 hr. 45 mins from Rio de Janeiro – the Reserve.

A few months earlier, it also launched Finolhu Villas, a small property of 52 bungalows (30 of these over-water) on a small private island, a few minutes by boat from Club Med Kani in the Maldives.

In the North American zone, the pioneer of the all-inclusive concept will open a second ‘4 Trident’ village in the Dominican Republic. It will be located in Miches, on the north coast, halfway between Punta Cana and the Samana Peninsula.

Other inaugurations planned for 2020 include Beruela in Sri Lanka, Saraba, Senegal (the second village in this country), Lombok, the neighbouring island of Bali in Indonesia, and Marbella in Spain (a return to the old site that the Club has already operated in the past).

These are all offered in the ‘4 Tridents’ category, with 84 per cent of the hotel fleet capacity now available in ‘4 Trident’ and ‘5 Trident’ categories.

Cefalu

Samoëns