Club Mediterranee sees Asia-Pacific as growth region

By Sharen Kaur (Published in NST on September 22 2009)

PARIS-LISTED Club Mediterranee plans to set up more ski and beach resorts and is targeting Asia-Pacific as a growth region.

Club Med vice-president of marketing and general manager of commercial for Asia-Pacific, Olivier Horps, said it is looking to open three resorts in China and one in Japan within the next three years for more than RM150 million.

"We are looking at management contracts and setting some up on our own with developers. Our aim is to be one of the biggest ski and beach resort operators in China and Japan," he said in an interview.

Club Mediterranee is the world leader for ski resorts with 23 properties, the bulk of which are in Europe.

"We find that Asia-Pacific is less affected by the current economic crisis and people from worldwide have continued their vacations in this region. So we believe there is potential for us to grow," Horps said.

Club Mediterranee has 10 resorts in Asia-Pacific, of which two are in Hokaido and Kabira, Japan, two in Mauritius, and one each in Malaysia, Bali, Maldives, Phuket, Bintan and Australia.

Worldwide, it has a total of 80 resorts, which hosted a combine 1.36 million customers in 2008, representing a growth of 2.8 per cent.

Horps said its resorts in Asia-Pacific are expected to close the year with 60 per cent occupancy.

Last year, its Asia-Pacific operations earned Euro200 million (RM1.02 billion) contributing 12 per cent to Club Mediterranee's global revenue of Euro1.5 billion (RM7.68 billion).

"This year, we hope to maintain the revenue for our business in Asia-Pacific. In the current context, maintaining is already good. It has been a rough year with the economic crisis first, and then influenza A(H1N1).

"What we see is more late bookings. People are planning their holiday on shorter notice," he said.

At group level, revenue will decrease slightly but Club Mediterranee is expecting to do better than its competitors, Horps said.

Its net profit for fiscal 2008 was Euro2 million (RM10.24 million), as compared with a loss of Euro8 million (RM40.96 million) in 2007.
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