Club Méditerranée
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Tourism |
| Founded | 1950 |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
|
Key people
|
Henri Giscard d'Estaing, Chairman of the Board Michel Wolfovski, Executive Vice President and CFO |
| Products |
Travel Tourism |
| Revenue | €1.4 billion (2014) |
|
Number of employees
|
20,333 |
| Parent | Fosun International |
| Website | www.clubmed.com |
Club Méditerranée SA, commonly known as Club Med, is a French public limited company specializing in the sale of all-in holidays at a number of "vacation villages" which it owns and operates in a number of (usually exotic) locations around the world.
The Club was started in 1950 by former Belgian water polo champion Gérard Blitz. Blitz, a Belgian, had opened a low-priced summer colony of tents on the island of Majorca. Gilbert Trigano supplied the tents, and in 1953 Blitz wooed him into a partnership. The first official Club Med was built the next year in Palinuro, Salerno Italy. The original villages were simple: members stayed in unlit straw huts on a beachfront, sharing communal washing facilities. Such villages have been replaced with modern blocks or huts with ensuite facilities.
In 1961, the company was purchased by the 35-year-old Baron Edmond de Rothschild, after he had visited a resort and enjoyed his stay. With Rothschild financing, the number of villages increased greatly under Trigano's leadership from 1963 to 1993. Winter villages, providing skiing and winter sports tuition, were introduced in 1956 at Leysin, Switzerland. In 1965, the first club outside the Mediterranean was opened, in Tahiti. Club Med broadened its reach by opening villages in the Caribbean and Florida where English rather than French was the main language.
Originally attracting mainly singles and young couples, the Club later became primarily a destination for families, with the first Mini Club opening in 1967.
The Club has also ceased to be a club in the legal sense, changing from a not-for-profit association to a for-profit public limited company (French SA) in 1995. However, each new customer is still charged a membership fee upon joining, and returning customers are charged an annual fee as well.
In the 1990s, the Club's fortunes declined because competitors copied its concepts and holidaymakers demanded more sophisticated offerings. Serge Trigano took over from his father but was replaced in 1997 by Philippe Bourguignon, former CEO of EuroDisney.
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Wikipedia