successively entered the Chinese market, Club Med accelerated the localization process. On August 17, Club Med officially announced that it will use " Club Med " as its official Chinese name from now on, and further realize the brand's long-term development strategic layout in China. This move means that Club Med will accelerate the localization process. In the past two years, Club Med has accelerated its layout in the Chinese market and successively opened new projects in Lijiang, Changbai Mountain, Qiandao Lake , etc. However, while promoting the localization strategy, Club Med, which is positioned in the high-end parent-child vacation market, is also encountering more and more competition. Whether it can continue to obtain sufficient passenger flow in the future is worth thinking about.
Promote the localization process
It is reported that the Chinese name "Club Med" launched by Club Med this time will be officially renewed collectively in all Club Med's Chinese resorts, and will be used simultaneously on its online and offline official platforms.
In view of the localization layout, Club Med took the "88 Membership Month" as an opportunity to launch the 88 "Wonderful Home" large-scale offline membership event for the first time at its Lijiang resort. It is understood that this membership program is a local membership reward program customized for the Club Med Chinese market. When you join the membership, you can enjoy booking discounts, in-resort consumption discounts and series of exclusive membership rights.
"The Chinese name of Club Med was officially launched, which plays an important role in establishing our brand image in the entire Chinese market." Xu Bingxuan, CEO of Club Med China, said, "In the first half of the year, we opened 3 resorts. It plans to open 17 new resorts by the end of 2024, 9 of which are in China. "
In fact, before the release of its Chinese name, Club Med had already shown its "ambition" in the Chinese market. Starting from September 2021, Club Med Lijiang Resort and Changbai Mountain Resort will open one after another. In November last year, Club Med announced that it had formally signed a contract with the Foshan Yujiangnan project of Poly South China Industrial Co., Ltd. for the Club Med Joyview Foshan Resort, adding a domestic South China layout and expected to open in the first half of 2023. In June this year, Club Med Joyview Thousand Island Lake Resort officially opened. In July, Club Med Joyview Beijing Yanqing Resort Lijing Building (Phase II) started pre-sales. Talking about the next layout, Club Med said that the resort in Xianlin, Nanjing is expected to officially open in the second half of this year.
Benefit from the boom in short-distance travel
Benefiting from the rebound in global business, Fosun Tourism has been able to recover quickly, but the local market is still a treasure trove that it "can't put it down".
Not long ago, Fosun Tourism released its performance forecast for the first half of 2022. During the reporting period, the turnover of tourism operations (at constant exchange rates) is expected to increase by approximately 198.0% year-on-year. Judging from Club Med's performance, in the first half of 2022, Club Med recorded a turnover (at constant exchange rates) of approximately 5.743 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 336.0% over the same period, returning to 90.2% of the same period in 2019; the resort's capacity is relatively In the first half of 2021, it increased by approximately 122.4%, accounting for approximately 87.4% of the same period in 2019; the global average bed occupancy rate reached 59.1%.
Fosun Tourism said that thanks to the lifting of travel restrictions in major overseas tourist source areas and destinations, the group was able to quickly resume resort operations. After the restart, its operations continued the recovery momentum since the second half of 2021.
Although the domestic market was greatly affected by the epidemic in the first half of the year, the recovery momentum in China was also very strong last year. At the same time, affected by the changes in the epidemic, the demand for peripheral travel continues to rise, and the travel radius of consumers has also changed from outbound travel and inter-provincial travel to short-distance leisure travel mainly local and suburban areas. And this is precisely one of the reasons that promotes Club Med’s continuous expansion.
In June this year, when the epidemic situation was improving, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily visited Club Med Joyview Beijing Yanqing Resort and saw that the resort welcomed many tourists on the first day it reopened. Since then, during the summer, the second phase of Lijing Tower During the trial opening period, all rooms open to the public were fully booked.
According to Gu Huimin, a professor at the School of Tourism Science of Beijing International Studies University, although the domestic market is currently greatly affected by the epidemic, its long-term development trend will not change, so most international brands are still optimistic about the future prospects of the Chinese market.At the same time, Club Med's own positioning is health, sports and leisure, which exactly meets China's future consumption upgrade needs and is very consistent with the development trend of the domestic market.
Site selection and talent allocation are the key to development.
As more and more hotels are transforming into parent-child vacations, Club Med will have more competitors in the high-end vacation field in the future. Previously, the Beijing Expo Hyatt Hotel in Yanqing District launched the "Egyptian Goddess" parent-child theme room, and launched parent-child camping activities this summer; Crowne Plaza Hotel this year teamed up with Lego Monkie Kid in Beijing Hotels in , Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities have launched "Lego Monkey King Series" themed rooms. It can be seen that many hotel groups are competing for the huge parent-child market.
Gu Huimin said that although other hotel groups' layout of the parent-child market will play a certain diversion role for Club Med, China's consumer market is huge enough. In the future, the "cake" of the parent-child market will become bigger and bigger. Only high-quality products will be better.
As for the development of Club Med itself, whether the team talents required by the high-end resorts that are springing up like mushrooms can be matched will also become one of the issues that Club Med needs to consider. Song Changyao, assistant to the dean of the Capital Culture and Tourism Development Research Institute of Beijing International Studies University, believes that the rapid development of high-end vacations requires corresponding service talents. Comprehensive talents with professional skills, service awareness, management capabilities and even special talents are the shortcomings of the development of high-end vacations and are also a key element in improving the competitiveness of vacation brands. At present, due to the initial development of high-end vacations, a process-based and systematic talent training model has not yet been established, and needs to be gradually explored as China's vacation industry develops. Industry insiders also said that for Club Med, the resort needs to be equipped with professional G.O team personnel, so the demand for professional service personnel is stronger.
In addition to the deployment of talents, Club Med also needs to "do homework" in advance when it comes to site selection for future resorts. Some industry insiders said that judging from the current resort location selection, some resorts will have obvious off-peak and peak seasons, and this may also affect their passenger flow and performance in the off-season.
According to Song Changyao, the location selection of the resort is the key to its profitability and sustainable development. Accessibility for those with the spending power and desire to vacation is important. In the future site selection process, Club Med can develop its layout around the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Chengdu and Chongqing and other mega-city clusters. These areas not only provide large-scale potential consumer groups, but also are gathering places for high-quality service talents. In addition, the layout around world heritage sites and areas with unique attractions, such as deserts, hot springs, lakefronts, etc., is also an important direction for the location selection of theme resorts.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Wu Qiyun
