UK bookings up 5% for Club Med
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Club Med has seen a 5% increase in bookings in the UK market for the first half of the year as it boosts business across Europe and emerging markets.
The travel company saw its business volume improve 4.6% to EUR798 million (£645m) during H1, with its villages operating income up 13% to £42m and numbers in its luxury properties up 7.6%.
Late snow fall helped boost the H1 winter sales, with Club Med’s customer count up 5.4% in the 2012 winter season and its new Valmorel village opening with an 85% occupancy rate.
For the year ahead Club Med has five other resorts under way, including two for winter. All cover the four and five-Trident sector following the success in its luxury market. Forward summer bookings for Europe are up 3.5% as of 2 June year-on-year, with capacity down 2.9%.
“Club Méditerranée reported a further improvement in earnings for first-half 2012, in a contracting European tourist market. The increase in sales, the number of customers and their satisfaction rate, especially in 4 and 5-Trident villages, are powerful indicators of Club Med’s success in the premium all-inclusive vacation segment,” said Henri Giscard d’Estaing, chairman and CEO of Club Med. “Market share gains in mature countries, especially France, as well as the strategy of expanding in fast developing countries and the scheduled openings of 4 and 5-Trident villages in 2013 provide us with advantages in an increasingly difficult European market”.
The first property to open will be its Guilin village in China this summer, which will operate at full capacity next spring. This December the four-Trident Pragelato Via Lattea will open in Italy and its managed resort in Belek, Turkey will add more than 900 beds when it opens in March 2013.
Its other development projects include a second village in the Maldives, which will have a four-Trident village and add a five-Trident section in 2015. Furthermore, a similar split village will open in Chbika, southern Morocco in winter 2015.
Despite increases in the European markets, Club Med is also receiving its share of emerging markets, which accounted for 20% of its 2012 winter season clients. There was a 31% increase in the China market, with visitors also from Brazil, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Argentina, South Africa, Mexico and Turkey.
