Club Med to open 17 new resorts in next 3 years, including in Japan and Malaysia

ASK Henri Giscard d’Estaing, Club Med’s chairman and chief executive officer, if he is worried about the competition as more hotel chains start to eye the all-inclusive model, and the Frenchman is nonchalant.

“We are the pioneer in this field (and) for a very long time, we were the only one. The good news is that now, more and more players are feeling that this is the best way to serve their clients. But it requires a lot of experience, which takes time and we have been around for 72 years,” he said on Monday (Jun 27).

He was speaking to The Business Times in an interview as part of his visit to Singapore to open Club Med’s new East, South Asia and Pacific office along Somerset Road.

Club Med has been enjoying what the group describes as “unprecedented rebound growth” from January to June of this year, including a 95 per cent increase in Web visitors and a 12 per cent increase in online bookings just in the last 2 weeks of May for the latest flagship reopening at Club Med Bali.

The growth comes from customers familiar with the brand, as well as new guests who were unable to travel due to border closures but lived near to a Club Med resort, said d’Estaing. Over in neighbouring Malaysia, Club Med has a resort on Cherating Beach in Pahang, with the group having doubled the number of Malaysian clients this year, he added.

As for how Club Med was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, d’Estaing said the crisis actually helped to accelerate the group’s growth.

“A significant number of tourism players, including (those in) Europe, were weakened by this crisis,” he said. “And so our financial partners for new resort development are more keen than ever to support us in our projects. This is also why we have 17 new resorts planned for the next 3 years, which is the highest level of growth of new capacity we have had in the last 20 years.”

In comparison, Club Med opened 4 new resorts and completed the renovations for 4 properties globally last year.

The locations of these new resorts are “balanced” around the world, said d’Estaing, even as he stressed that “we want to be present in key destinations with a specific focus in Asia, where growth is the greatest”.

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Within Asia, Club Med will open its third resort in Japan in 2023, in Kiroro. The group’s second resort in Malaysia — at Borneo Kota Kinabalu — is set to open in 2024. The latter will be located on Kuala Penyu Beach, a 90-minute drive from Kota Kinabalu International Airport.

Also on the cards for this period is the completion of 13 renovations or extensions of existing resorts. Among those that have reopened recently is Club Med Phuket, which welcomed guests back in March this year with redesigned spaces, upgraded facilities and refreshed programming.

Club Med was started in 1950 and pioneered the concept of all-inclusive holidays. In 2004, the group refocused its business on the upscale segment of the global tourism market. As of 2013, it has been primarily owned by Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group.