Club Med offers guests 'interior' luxury - the rare commodities of time and space and the opportunity to reconnect with their inner selves
Club Med has set itself no small challenge: to reinvent the upscale holiday. Instead of external displays of grandeur, the global travel company aims to offer guests 'interior' luxury - the rare commodities of time and space - and the opportunity to reconnect with their inner selves, others and nature.
'We are maintaining Club Med's historical spirit of conviviality, but we have gone upscale,' said Caroline Puechoultres, president and chief executive of Club Med Asia-Pacific. 'We want to give our guests an upmarket yet friendly, open, emotional and human experience.'
Club Med is a well-known name and has 82 per cent awareness in Hong Kong, 90 per cent in New Zealand, 95 per cent in Singapore and 65 per cent in Shanghai. Club Med opened its Shanghai sales office in 2003. In France, a survey revealed that more than one-third of the population had stayed at a Club Med resort.
The chain, which started operating in France in 1950, has big plans for Asia. The company already has nine resorts in Asia-Pacific, including a ski resort in Japan, a family village in Phuket and a golf and spa resort on Bintan Island in Indonesia. With no competitors offering the kind of all-inclusive escapes that Club Med specialises in, Ms Puechoultres is confident that the business will grow quickly.
Within five years the company expects to have an eco-resort in Vietnam, a ski resort near Beijing, a second resort in the Maldives, and a resort in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, that will be Club Med's first Asian resort with a five-trident rating, the chain's in-house equivalent to star rating. The Philippines is another possible location on the radar, as is a second ski resort in Japan and further developments in Thailand and Indonesia.