Club Med goes glam at $2000 a night
The travel operator, known for offering all-inclusive holidays, is tapping into the luxury market.
Roped together atop La Grand Motte glacier above Tignes, we’re surrounded by a dazzling sea of peaks unfurling seemingly endlessly towards Italy and Switzerland. But our small group is busy focusing on descending into a crevasse. Sage advice is to avoid these chasms, yet here we are, willingly lowering ourselves into a cold, glittering mountain mouth, appearing as if it could swallow us whole. “Isn’t this amazing?” enthuses mountain guide Antoine. These glacial fractures can drop like an elevator shaft but, happily, this is more ice cave than fissure and inside we’re awestruck by the smooth walls, eerie twilight ambience and slowly seeping chill. More amazing still is that this isn’t a mountaineering course but an average Club Med Tignes winter activity in the French Alps near the border with Italy.
The joint concept of “adventure” and “Club Med” is something relatively new. The company turned 70 in 2020 and this year celebrates 65 years in mountain locales, with more properties in the pipeline. Its new venture at Snowbasin Resort in Utah, due to open next year, will be its first in the US in two decades and Japan adds another two this season, for a total of three. Club Med is also phasing out properties below its 4 Tridents rating system. The opening of the $200m slope-side Club Med Tignes location represents a renewed focus on the family and luxury market. “In summer there are so many holiday options with similar models, but there’s none like us that make life so easy in winter,” says Oliver Niang, chef de village at nearby Club Med Alpe d’Huez. Ski holiday logistics? “You go to the ski room, the supervised Mini Club Med is on the way, then you step from locker room to the slopes. It’s seamless,” he adds.
During the launch of the Tignes property, Club Med president Henri Giscard d’Estaing refers to the “the zero friction experience”. Like a series of well-groomed ski runs, all encounters lead to achieving one thing, the Art of Happiness, a concept created by Gerard Blitz, who founded Club Med as a place for connection for postwar Europe, with every need anticipated. He famously proclaimed, “The aim in life is to be happy, the time to be happy is now and the place to be happy is here.”
Travelling to Val Claret, Tignes’s highest village at 2100m, I am ready to be both happy and to experience zero friction. In a week where lower ski areas are deprived of snow, I’m greeted with a vision of white, mountains extending like pillowy arms either side of a snowbound bowl. It’s a quintessential alpine scene of lifts inching towards fanglike spires, skiers swooping gracefully, and woollen bobble hats every which way. Centre stage is the 430-bed Club Med Tignes, built on a former car park, within a pole’s poke of the lifts. The immediate feel is playful sophistication, the open-plan entry floor dominated by immense south-facing windows. There are cosy nooks surrounded by local stone and larch wood, the buzzing Equinoxe bar and eye-popping pink furnishings, masterminded by Studio Jean-Philippe Nuel Architecture and Design. The creative art includes a graffitied snowboard collage by French street artist Lucas Beaufort.
Club Med was once about participation, now it’s about choice. While some guests are honing happiness in the 25m swimming pool (Club Med’s largest in the Alps), the Club Med Spa by Sothys or taking a spin class or Heberson Oliveira-designed yoga lesson, I’m off to explore the slopes. The ski area is so well integrated with neighbour Val d’Isere that the combined 300km of pistes in the Tignes-Val d’Isere ski area (formerly Espace Killy) make it feel immense. The terrain is a choose-your-own adventure from technical couloirs to swooping intermediate runs and snowy motorways linking Val d’Isere. But while the vibe in Val d’Isere is chic, in Tignes it’s energetic. “This is the dynamic side of the mountain where professionals train and race,” explains former Olympian and instructor Theo Lejeune, whose grandfather made the run we’ve just skied.
For me, it’s a friction-free experience where new Rossignol skis and boots are waiting in my ski locker, which is five steps from the slopes, ready for my lessons, all of which are included and pre-ordered on the Club Med app. The pole position of that locker is no happy accident. This is a perk for guests staying in the discreet Exclusive Collection Space, and just days after Club Med Tignes pops its first champagne corks, Club Med Val D’Isere opens as the first Exclusive Collection Space-only resort in the Alps. In Tignes these 25 top-floor suites share a private concierge and sommelier, enjoy priority bookings at Le Solstice Gourmet Lounge (the speciality a la carte restaurant) and the breakfast area morphs into a bar serving 4pm aperitifs and, from 6pm, champagne and cocktails (the Side Car packs a punch). Not that speciality dining is required when the Val Claret main dining area presents veritable feasts. After all, this is France. The dessert selection is a teetering pile of delicacies, the cheese area groans under Brie de Meaux and local Tomme de Savoie. The hot stations feature dishes cooked to order, from ramen noodles to bubbling fondue.
While Club Med properties have synchronised elements, each feels as unique as a snowflake. So upon departing Tignes to the renovated Club Med Alpe d’Huez, which was gutted back to a shell and feels new, it’s immediately different. Nangier says: “Club Med Tignes is the centre of the slopes and action. Here, it’s a slower pace.” Tignes is more of a cancan kicking showgirl, while Alpe d’Huez has a demure, ski lodge feel with a spectacular deck offering unbeatable sunset views.
The next day, another outdated myth that Club Med isn’t for avid skiers is deconstructed as Australian former Olympian Brodie Summers gleefully road tests the premium ski rental range. Club Med is an official partner of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. As a result, snow Olympians train and recover in Club Meds worldwide. Summers says he has a soft spot for the Val d’Huez slopes, where he’s competed at World Cups, and not just for the diverse terrain but its X factor. “It just feels special,” he explains, “and it’s incredible how Club Med works for everyone, even for a professional athlete it ticks every box from the training facilities to nutrition.”
Continuing in the spirit of experiencing new things, I depart on a literal high by trying a tandem paragliding flight. The instructor urges me to steer and as we soar above the pistes, initial fear turns to joy. By joining the Club, I’ve been handed yet another little handful of happiness.
In the know
Club Med operates winter properties in France, Switzerland, Italy, China, Japan, Canada and, from next year, the US. Club Med Tignes and Club Med Alpe d’Huez are part of Club Med’s collection of all-inclusive ski-in-ski-out resorts in the world-renowned Savoie ski region of the French Alps. Superior rooms from $2150 at Club Med Tignes and $2715 at Club Med Alpe d’Huez. Includes all-day gourmet dining and open bar, lift passes, group ski and snowboard lessons, clubs for ages 4-17 years and apres-ski activities. Look for early bird deals for the 2024 ski season.
Flip Byrnes was a guest of Club Med.
