Club Med Wants To Grow English Canadian Market

English-speaking Canada is a huge growth market for Club Med, Club Med officials said at an event in Toronto on Tuesday night.

Sixty per cent of Canadian bookings come from Quebec, while roughly 20 per cent come from Ontario, said Carolyne Doyon, Club Med SVP Canada and Mexico. Business in Canada is up nine per cent this year and has grown the last eight years, but there’s more to do.

“Club Med used to be quite French,” Doyon said in an interview with TravelPulse Canada. “But it’s different now. We want people to know they’ll find a French touch (at Club Med resorts) but all the staff speak English.

“There’s no reason for English Canadians not to go to Club Med,” she said at a well-attended event in Toronto’s Distillery District, with dozens of agents in attendance. “It’s up to us to raise brand awareness and educate our travel partners, which is what we’re doing here tonight.”

Doyon said Club Med works closely with agents.

“We’re very agent friendly,” she said. “We believe in the travel agent community. They’re our ambassadors and they remain in Canada our main distribution channel. We began a great new agent program last year with new rewards and points for agents they can redeem for a vacation.

“We also now have the iframe program, a BtoCtoC website where they have different tabs or landing spaces. We can provide agents with a link and they install it on their website and we update the content. It’s a landing page with information on the product and there’s no maintenance. It’s constantly updated, and it’s a great tool.”

Doyon said Club Med began to reposition itself as much more of a luxury product in 2004. At that time, they had 120 properties around the world. Now, that sits at 70. But they’re adding five resorts a year, she said, with one resort a year being a ski or winter resort.

One of the ski or mountain resorts that’s in the works is Club Med Quebec Charlevoix, the first Club Med resort in Canada and a property that’s slated to open in December, 2020.

Doyon said Club Med resorts around the world are undergoing massive renovations and re-building efforts. Their Cancun resort has added 60 new rooms to the 60 they already had, with a new pool and bar. As previously reported by TravelPulse, they also are building Club Med Miches Playa Esmeralda, a resort that’s about 90 minutes northwest of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. It will be the first of Club Med’s “Exclusive Collection” properties in North America.

“There’s nobody there,” Doyon told TravelPulse Canada of the DR locale. “It’s like Cancun in 1976.”

Other top-of-the-line resorts are coming in The Maldives, France, Sri Lanka, Sicily and the Caribbean.

“Travel is changing,” Doyon said. “People want more active vacations and unique experiences they can’t get at home, which is why with Club Med you can try a flying trapeze or snorkel on the world’s second largest reef in Cancun right from your room.”