Global specialist in premium all-inclusive holidays, Club Med doubled its business in Asia last year versus 2022, and has already surpassed its pre-pandemic growth level in Asia with business growing +6 per cent in 2023 vis-à-vis 2019.
Even though the Indian market grew by +37 per cent in 2023 compared with 2022 for Club Med, the other Asian markets including Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are much bigger than India.
“In some Asian markets, like Japan, we have five domestic resorts so the demand is much higher than India. However, we are recording a strong demand for our ski resorts among Indian outbound travellers. In fact, the growth of ski business from India was +430 per cent in 2023 versus 2022 for our ski resorts in destinations like France and Japan,” said Bruno Courbet, director of Indonesia, India, Thailand and new markets, Club Med while speaking to TTG Asia.
Courbet shared that the business for its resorts in Maldives has gone down – it used to contribute 60 to 70 per cent to its overall business from India in the pre-Covid era. This is why Club Med is aggressively promoting ski resorts in the Indian market at present.
He continued: “Overall in the Asian region, 15 per cent of our business is MICE driven but, as of today, 100 per cent of our business in India is leisure-centric. We believe that MICE, especially the incentive movement, has the potential to contribute 10 to 15 per cent of our total business in India in the next few years. We will start by working on small MICE groups of 20 to 25 pax.”
“We have two key priorities in Asia – the first one is the ski business and the second one is our high-end Exclusive Collection Resorts,” added Courbet.
In terms of its expansion plans in Asia, Club Med is coming up with one resort in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia by mid-2025, with plans to open five resorts in Indonesia over the next few years.
“We want to expand in Thailand. We also see an opportunity in foraying into the Indian market by opening a ski resort in the northern part of the country,” said Courbet.
Presently, 60 per cent business for Club Med resorts is generated by European markets, 20 per cent by American markets and the remaining 20 per cent from Asia.
