2023-04-26
Jerome FERRIE
Chief Financial Officer APAC of Club Med
Full text:
Dear guests,
Good morning. In the past three years, tourism companies have faced many difficulties and challenges, but we could always spot new opportunities in the face of adversity. Looking back, some of these opportunities have become the norm. It is my great honour to share with you what Club Med has done and achieved in the past years.
First in term of development, between 2020 and 2022, we opened seven new resorts overseas and finished eight renovations to give existing resorts a brand-new look.
Three of the new resorts are in China and Thailand. One is the Lijiang resort in China, which sets against the Yulong Snow Mountain. Club Med believes that a mountainous landscape is a great magnet to clients and that’s why we have two resorts in mountainous areas in China. Our Thousand Island Lake resort is also a great success, with high bookings and market recognition.
We expect to open three more resorts in the second half of the year. In the upcoming three years, we plan to develop 12 more resorts, and by 2025, we will have four product lines side by side, and operate 30 resorts across Asia Pacific to serve both inbound and outbound clients.
We also have a new project in Hangzhou, a destination market we have high expectations for. I’m glad to tell you that the project is about to break the ground.
Besides our own development, we have some new insights into the global tourism industry and the tourist group. We want to do a better job in localization. Especially for Chinese guests, we need to understand what they want and adapt our products and services accordingly, so as to go further in the Chinese market. It is very important to collect the needs of Chinese tourists and improve our work accordingly.
We are also working on a new project series of city resorts which will allow many city dwellers who do not have time for a long vacation to enjoy a short one without leaving their city of residence or leaving their work or familiar life behind.
We are also strengthening cultural exchanges and cooperation with different countries, in an effort to bring Chinese tourists back to Japan, Indonesia and Maldives to meet their tourism and vacation needs, and lure more overseas tourists, also for the purpose of tourism, to China and appreciate the country’s unique customs, long history and rich cultural legacy.
Guilin is another Chinese destination city we want to promote to international tourists. We look forward to discussing cooperation opportunities with industry leaders present on how to make better use of the rebound of the tourism industry.
Finally, as a global enterprise, Club Med has been committed to fulfilling our Corporate Social Responsibility, and has launched many projects including the Green Globe Certification. We take a variety of measures to protect the planet. Take plastic products for an example. No plastic products are provided in the rooms unless requested by guests. We also take many energy-saving actions, such as reminding guests to minimize unnecessary electricity consumption.
We have also launched a lot of social projects, including ones to promote local employment and local sourcing to boost the agricultural economy. For example, in Lijiang of Yunnan, we promote the cultivation of organic vegetables and purchase them from local farmers for our resorts to increase farmers’ income. This project is expanded to Bali, Indonesia, and has turned out a great success, too. In 2022, Club Med did a brilliant job in boosting farmers’ income.
We support the development of local education, and are deeply involved in projects supporting children’s development. Recently, our resorts in Guilin and Anji have hosted activities for local primary and secondary school students. CSR projects are vital for Club Med resorts.
For Club Med, global employee mobility is a big brand of us as an employer, which allows us to further fulfil our Corporate Social Responsibility, and attract guests to our resorts with differentiated and unique services. We plan to send 200 international employees to China in 2024, to give our employees the rare opportunity to work in different countries.
Thanks!