With a two-year takeover battle behind it, Club Med has just gone private and is focusing on expanding its global network of upscale and luxury resorts.
And in the U.S., it is working to rebuild a strained relationship with the retail trade.
"We are upscale and growing and are really committed to you and looking for more opportunities to expand in the agent channel," Camille Olivere, Club Med's senior vice president of sales, told agents at a trade dinner in New York earlier this month.
Olivere was hired in February, close on the heels of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International's January victory in a monthslong bidding war with Italian financier Andrea Bonomi.
The Fosun group's takeover enabled Club Med Chairman Henri Giscard d'Estaing to achieve his goal of taking the company private, ending the company's inner turmoil and enabling management to put its energy into growth and distribution.
Olivere said that Club Med went through a culling phase that saw the number of its resorts drop from more than 100 to 65; that meant the company also cut back on event sponsorships, media buys and consortia memberships, although it did continue to pay commissions and invest in co-op marketing. Olivere said those reductions were part of cost-cutting efforts that have now been completed.
She readily admitted that Club Med has its work cut out for it with the trade.
"Once you try to rebuild that momentum, it is very hard," she said. "It doesn't happen by snapping your fingers and signing a contract. You have to rebuild trust and regain your place in every agency's ecosystem."
One way of regaining its place in that ecosystem is a new Club Med booking tool, which, Olivere told agents at the New York meeting, should be ready in three to six months.
"We know we have challenges with our booking engine; we hear you," she said, referring to the agent booking tool, Easy Club Med.
Club Med is working with HBSi, a hotel booking solution, to connect its reservations system to agent booking tools. Olivere said one example of the kind of tool Club Med might connect with is VAX Vacation Access. It will continue to use Easy Club Med but improve its functionality.
The company is now holding agent webinars monthly, covering topics such as product development and improvements to booking technology.
Olivere said that when Club Med culled its resorts, it shed mass market properties but kept the more upscale resorts. As a result, 70% now are rated 4 and 5 Trident, the company's in-house hotel rating system that is similar to four- and five-star properties.
In the meantime, Club Med is in growth mode globally, planning to add new resorts and expand existing ones, Olivere said. It will add more 4- and 5-Trident space to its resorts in Cancun and Punta Cana, she said, and the company will reintroduce ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada in the next few years and wants to increase awareness of its ski product.
One of its newest resorts is the Club Med Val Thorens Sensations, a ski resort in the French Alps.
Agents were receptive to Olivere's message.
"They have made all these phenomenal renovations," said Suzanne Hall, senior director of land-supplier relationships with Ensemble Travel Group, and an attendee at the New York dinner. "They've come out with a focused and strong brand statement and are going to the agencies for their support."