Club Med ushered in a new era, becoming a luxury product

It was only 10 o’clock when a gust of wind swept through the lounge of Club Med in Val-d’Isère (Savoie). In the common room of this 216-room hotel-club at the foot of the ski slopes, not five, not ten, but forty Brazilian children set off in pursuit. They are there, climbing on the sofa, running through the corridors, running up the stairs. Needless to say, it’s mind-blowing. “It’s certain that elsewhere, it won’t work…”, Glides, calm, Philippe Sambe, “GO” (for “Nice Organizer”, the name given to staff in contact with customers), who works at the reception. We’re like that at Club Med: there’s always a certain libertarian spirit.

And yet, “Bronze” has changed a lot. This week in January, the Val-d’Isère “club” is full, and half of the 500 customers are Brazilian. Ana Paola Aragon, who lives in São Paulo, came here for a week with her 13-year-old twins and her husband, who owns a plastics manufacturing company. They paid 15,000 euros for their week, excluding transportation. “What we like is that it’s all inclusive. Except for the spa treatments, which I go to during the day because I don’t ski”, she explains.

At Salons, we also meet 43-year-old Brazilian architect Mariana Vieira, who is married to a financial director. They arrived with their three children after spending a week in London. “We found other American school parents here in Rio. We are a group of thirty! »

That week, there were also several South Africans, and about a hundred Turks, such as Irem Yagmurdereli, a 54-year-old retiree who worked in the oil industry. She lives in Istanbul and is spending a week in Val-d’Isère with her daughter Dila, 17, who will start studies at Columbia University in New York in September.

This globalized and ultra-affluent class, who come with their families to enjoy the exoticism of the French mountains, has become the main target of Alpine Club Med. A customer that is the embodiment of the upscaling strategy launched by the company in 2004, which has made the mountain a strategic priority. It must be said that it is on the peaks that Club Med achieves its best performance. “This is where our premium all-inclusive package brings the most to our guests, especially families”

explains 67-year-old Henri Giscard d’Estaing, CEO of the company, which has belonged to Chinese conglomerate Fosun since 2015.

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