Club Med to showcase French know-how in winter sports at CIIE, says CEO

France-based resort giant Club Med aims to help Chinese public and institutions benefit from the French know-how in winter sports and to give them the desire to discover the French Alps, its Chairman and CEO Henri Giscard d'Estaing has told Xinhua. 

Club Med, which was bought by China's Fosun Group for 939 million euros (1.04 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, also plans to develop "new resorts in China but also outside China", Giscard d'Estaing said in a recent interview. 

Club Med and Fosun appear together in the "Ice and Snow" pavilion at the Second China International Import Expo (CIIE), held in Shanghai from Tuesday through Sunday. In addition, they plan to sign new agreements for the establishment of a skiing school and mountain resorts. 

"In line with our position here in Europe, where we are the leader for resort-based holidays in the mountains, in the Alps, we want to create in China the same attractiveness of winter sports," Giscard d'Estaing said. 

At the CIIE, "we want to give Chinese public the opportunity to taste winter sports in China and give them the desire to visit the French Alps," he continued. 

Club Med has opened two mountain resorts in China, in the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin. At a moment when winter sports in China are seeing a strong surge of development and interest, Club Med and the Ecole du Ski Francais (French Ski School) are creating a "China Ski Academy." 

China is the biggest tourism market in the world, and increasingly, holidays and trips are integrated into the Chinese lifestyle. 

"So, we want to be part of it, contribute to it, (and) benefit from it as a company. And so we have the plans to create new resorts in China in exceptional locations," he said. 

"China is a very important destination and market for us, but we want also to make sure that we can offer to Chinese families the ability to discover the world and to benefit from the exceptional locations Club Med has created in the last 70 years," he continued. 

"There are many appealing factors in China. The first one is the size of the Chinese market, with the growth of the economy, but also the extraordinary technological development and I would say advancement of China in many fields. It is in China that we are learning digital mobile practices," Giscard d'Estaing said. 

China "is not only a market, but also a place where we learn. We learn ways of improving our marketing, doing new ways of selling which help us around the world." 

Henri Giscard d'Estaing, 63, is the elder son of former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. He visited China as a representative of the young French in the 1970s. Since his first trip to China, he has witnessed major transformations in China. 

The dynamic in Chinese society and the economy, the incredible speed of change, and its development offer simultaneously numerous opportunities to the world, Giscard d'Estaing added.