75 years on, Club Med is going after the luxury market

Telegraph

28-05-2025

Europe's equivalent of Butlins was founded in 1950 by Belgian entrepreneur Gérard Blitz as a low-priced summer colony of tents on the Spanish island of Majorca.
Blitz's idea, which he dubbed 'an antidote to civilisation', was to create a utopia where everything – food, sports, and lodging – was included, ensuring that everyone holidayed on equal terms. The world's first all-inclusive was born.
Club Med's utopian ethos also extended to other areas: shells were used instead of money to pay for extras; resorts were known as villages; guests ate at communal tables and doors were never locked.
'Club Med believes that the purpose of life is to be happy,' Nicolas Bresch, managing director for the UK, Ireland and Nordics told me over the phone. 'The idea was to foster a sense of community.'
The real genius behind the brand, however, was maverick businessman and former journalist Gilbert Trigano, who joined the company in 1954 and launched the transition from tents to thatch-roofed huts.
In post-war Europe, the dream of leaving behind grey skies and even greyer scenery for a hedonistic holiday in the sun was an easy sell.
During the 1960s the company expanded rapidly, opening properties in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, prompting avant-garde group Situationist International to coin the expression 'Club Med – a cheap holiday in other people's misery'.
Trigano's aggressive expansion strategy soon led the group into financial difficulties, however: Baron Rothschild – who'd stayed in one of the resorts and liked the formula – eventually saved the company from bankruptcy.
Despite the countless financial ups and downs that have marked the company's history over the years, Club Med is still going strong 75 years later. Now run by Chinese conglomerate Fosun, the group rebranded in 2023 and has invested some $1.5 billion in renovation projects in a bid to move upmarket and attract affluent millennial families.
Keen to see what the new luxury look was all about, I visited Club Med Seychelles, one of the company's Exclusive Collection resorts, which opened earlier this year.
Having seen French Fried Vacation (Les Bronzes), Patrice Leconte's 1970s cult Club Med satire, I was expecting regimented bathing and canteen food.
I was serenaded instead by the wind pattering in the leaves of royal palm and perfumed frangipani as I sipped champagne in an airy and elegant pitched-roof lobby while waiting for check-in.
Although it's only a 15-minute boat ride from Mahé, this resort set on its own 540-acre island overlooking the glass-clear waters of a nature reserve certainly felt exclusive; less so the yellow all-inclusive band that was strapped to my wrist on arrival.
When I realised that it did everything from opening my room door to paying my bar tab, however, I was more enthusiastic. 'With this system you don't have to worry about taking keys or credit cards with you everywhere. Club Med is all about de-stressing,' Bresch told me.
A total of €70 million was invested in refurbishing Club Med Seychelles, which was designed, according to the architect Gauthier Guillaume, 'to tell an extraordinary story, using tropical-chic elements'.
The 294 rooms are linked by palm tree-shaded paths and feature spacious, light-filled bedrooms, blonde parquet floors, pops of colour in knotted rope basket chairs and high ceilings painted with vivid leaf murals.
My suite in the Cape area received a deluge of 'wows!' when I posted pictures of it on social media, as did the bathroom with its standalone tub looking out over my private plunge pool to an idyllic white-sand beach beyond.
With three swimming pools, five tennis courts, four padel courts, a water sports centre and a dedicated kids' club, there's plenty to keep younger family members occupied. Adults-only spaces scattered across the property, ranging from a Zen zone to a stylish Cinq Mondes spa, ensure that parents feel pampered, too.
True to the group's ethos, there are also plenty of activities designed to get guests to meet and mingle – although most seemed reluctant to leave their own family or friendship groups when I stayed. During one of the nightly cocktail soirées I met teacher Sophie and her doctor husband Arnaud from Lyon.
'We've been doing Club Med for years. This is our 16th stay,' she enthused. 'It's more luxurious now and maybe less friendly, but we both love the fact that everything's easy and we can safely visit exotic places.'
The French outnumbered other guests by far during my stay, although Bresch told me that Britons are cottoning onto the formula. 'The UK counts for about 10 per cent of the market in warm destinations, but they are one of Club Med's main markets for winter resorts,' he said.
The resort also places an emphasis on sustainability, with no single-use plastic, a coral reef restoration programme and activities ranging from botanical hikes around the island's seven-kilometre coastline to adrenaline-pumping sallies into the surrounding jungle.
The brand's bid to compete with the luxury market is marred, however, by erratic service and lingering traces of the old Club Med mentality: after a hard day's work, staff – still called GOs (Gracious Organisers) – don costumes to perform shows that are well meant, but decidedly amateur. Food is not always top-notch.
'Premium brand drinks are very limited and you only have one choice of wine with meals, so it definitely doesn't feel luxurious. There are also lots of extra charges, including £24 for room service, which is far too much,' Vinay from Jaipur commented.
With bombast worthy of Trigano, Club Med plans to become 'the world's most desirable all-inclusive brand'.
Upcoming projects include a beach and safari resort to open next year in South Africa, and new-build properties are on the cards in Borneo and Oman. If the brand plans to really compete in an increasingly crowded luxury market, it will have a challenge on its hands.