Fosun Tourism Group and its overseas brands signed three contracts at the 3rd CIIE

The overseas brands Club Med and Casa Cook of Fosun Tourism Group (hereinafter referred to as “Fosun Tourism” or “the Group”, Hong Kong Exchange stock code: 1992) signed three contracts at the 3rd CIIE on November 6. This will not only bring more world-class vacation experiences to Chinese family consumers, but also demonstrate its confidence in Chinese market under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, and a sense of responsibility and mission for the industry's recovery as a leading company in the industry.

In the morning of November 6, witnessed by The French Ambassador to China, Mr Laurent Bili, French Consul General in Shanghai, Mr Benoît GUIDEE, the Chairman of Fosun International, Mr Guo Guangchang, Co-CEO of Fosun International, Mr Xu Xiaoliang and the Chairman and CEO of FOSUN TOURISM, Mr Qian Jiannong, etc, the global leaders of the concept “premium all-inclusive” Club Med signed the contract to deep its cooperation with the French ski school ESF, and signed the contract with Chengdu Sunac Ski School and Julong Ski Resort to open two additional ski academies within Sunac Snow World and Julong Internal Tourism Resort, introducing the domestic professional ski courses and providing skiing courses to ski lovers of different ages and levels with the same quality standard, professionalism and safety. Chengdu Sunac Ski School is located in Chengdu Sunac Snow World, Dujiangyan, Chengdu, Sichuan Province. It has a total construction area of ​​about 80,800 square meters with 6 ski trails of different levels and 2 terrain parks. It can accommodate 5,000 people skiing at the same time every day. Another ski academy is located in Julong International Tourism Resort, Qingyuan County, Fushun City, Liaoning Province. It covers an area of ​​500,000 square meters and has 10 high-quality ski trails for beginners, middle and advanced levels, and can receive more than 8,000 people skiing at the same time every day. According to the requirements of International Ski Federation regarding the internal skiing competition, the ski resort can host slalom, giant slalom, snowboarding skills, freestyle skiing and aerials events etc.

In the afternoon of the same day, the international boutique hotel  brand with a laid-back spirit, Casa Cook, which previously belonged to the British brand Thomas Cook, officially signed their first domestic cooperation project-Casa Cook Guishan Island Resort, with the Zhuhai Wanyang Yacht Club Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Hongzhou Group. The project is located in the Zhuhai Guishan Island Dolphin Bay project which is invested by Hongzhou Group. It will become a new benchmark for the top luxury island resort hotels in China, which is expected to open in 2023. In future, FOSUN TOURISM and Hongzhou Group will also work together to further develop marine and waterfront tourism, promote the construction of domestic marine economic development pilot areas, and build a leading island tourism destination in China.

Qian Jiannong, the Chairman and CEO of FOSUN TOURISM, said: “Although the COVID-19 epidemic has caused a huge impact on the global tourism industry, FOSUN TOURISM hopes to bring more high-quality oversea brands and more advanced vocation concepts to Chinese consumers through platforms like the China International Import Expo. FOSUN TOURISM is also actively improving the quality of vacation products and consolidating brand power to meet consumers’ increasing leisure and vacation demand after the epidemic, helping the market achieve economic recovery, and helping the domestic market. Under such a background, we also believe that China’s culture and tourism industry still has a very bright future."

Second time in CIIE, the oversea brands of FOSUN TOURISM gear up

Club Med has 70 years of experience in operating resorts since the first resort in 1950.At the same time, it has created a new vacation concept of “Premium all-inclusive”. Fosun invested in Club Med in 2010 and completed the acquisition in 2015. Club Med operates 65 resorts around the world, including different themes such as sun and mountain. Since been invested and acquired by Fosun, Club Med has been significantly improved in many aspects. The most notable is the brand's popularity in the Chinese market. While establishing the domestic popularity of such overseas brands, FOSUN TOURISM enables Chinese customers to experience advanced foreign travel products without leaving the country by introducing novel foreign products and services.

In 2018, Club Med launched Club Med Joyview, a brand-new vacation product based on the development trend of the Chinese tourism market. With only 2 to 3 hours’ drive from big cities, Club Med Joyview aims to create a more comfortable and convenient short-distance surrounding tours for urban consumers. In addition, Club Med, which has extensive experience in ice-snow and mountain vacations, is also an important and effective means FOSUN TOURISM to actively develop its layout of the ice-snow industry. At the 2019 CIIE, Club Med announced that it has reached a cooperation agreement with the Chinese Ski Association. At this year’s CIIE, Club Med will continue to explore the domestic ice-snow market to further assist the development of China's ice-snow sports, and to welcome the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

At this year’s CIIE, FOSUN TOURISM also brought Thomas Cook, a British leisure and vacation brand with a history of nearly 180 years, and its most important hotel brand, Casa Cook. Eight months after its brand being acquired, Thomas Cook reappeared with a new look on July 18 this year, transforming from a traditional travel agency to FOSUN TOURISM’s C-end digital lifestyle platform; the new Thomas Cook online travel agency launched in the UK this September. At the same time, Thomas Cook China has also made frequent moves this year, actively adjusting strategies to deal with the impact of the epidemic, and focusing on developing domestic long-term tours and pre-sales of hotel packages.

In the salon "British National Brands in China: From Travel to Lifestyle" on the British theme day in the FOSUN HAPPINESS exhibition area, representatives of Thomas Cook also shared this British national brand’s new development and future strategy in China. As the principal of Thomas Cook’s lifestyle platform, FOSUN TOURISM’s Vice President and CTO, Fiona Dou, who has experienced from brand acquisition to remodeling, from platform upgrading to iteration, said, “We are committed to create a lifestyle platform for global family users, and continuously improve the digital experience for our consumers. From 1841 to 2020, Thomas Cook is no longer a pure "travel" platform, but a new "travel + life" platform. Relying on the operation and development of Thomas Cook’s lifestyle platform, “Foryou Club” - the global membership club of FOSUN TOURISM, has more than 5.8 million members. The travel and vacation rights, lifestyle rights and value-added services are continuously upgrading, which is in line with Thomas Cook’s original aspiration: to create a better life together with our customers.” The General Manager of Thomas Cook China, Alessandro Dassi, also said: "The recovery of China's tourism industry has important implication on the world. Technological progress and economic development have accelerated the continuous evolution of consumer behavior and preferences. They now pay more attention to experience the culture and life of the destinations, and prefer a more convenient and efficient way to make the bookings. Thomas Cook China hope to cooperate with the group’s other affiliated brands to achieve a win-win situation and maximize the destination resources and technological advantages, to become the favorite vocation and travel service brand among Chinese consumers."

In addition, the "Internet celebrity pilgrimage brand- Atlantis Sanya" of FOSUN TOURISM made its appearance together with the mysterious atmosphere of the Aquaventure Waterpark. As the benchmark project of Sanya Tourism Upgrade 3.0, Atlantis is a one-stop tourism complex with very distinctive marine characteristics: the hotel has "The Lost Chhambers " Aquarium, and visitors can enjoy hundreds of marine creatures. Besides, Atlantis also has 21 global gourmet restaurants, covering international cuisines such as the continental buffet, the Chinese buffet, the Japanese cuisine, etc, enabling travelers to experience the culinary cultures all over the world in Hainan. The hotel comprises a perfect travel destination for families and is full of surprises. It is not simply a hotel with 1,314 rooms, but also a tourism experience product and a travel destination with rich contents, which is also an excellent choice for travelling in the post- epidemic period.

Dual-wheel driving, optimize FC2M ecosystem with quality FOLIDAY lifestyle

For the future development, FOSUN TOURISM adopts the “industrial operation + strategic investment” approach which combines both endogenous and exogenous growth as a dual-wheel driving. Having gone through the three stages of development from the initial investment, resources integration and operation, to the development of whole industry chain, FOSUN TOURISM has developed an entire industry chain of cultural and tourism with “resorts”, “tourism destinations” and “service and solutions” as the three major businesses. With the extensive expansion and endogenous growth go hand in hand, FOSUN TOURISM aims to create a FOLIDAY vacation model. At the same time, FOSUN TOURISM relies on "product power, resource control, and global layout" to help build a culture and tourism ecosystem. "To realize the globalization of our nation's leisure and vacation market, we must upgrade domestic tourism products by first introducing mature overseas brands, and then optimizing and upgrading the products according to the needs of our local consumers. In this way, we ensure our tourism products provided to the market are of high-quality and distinctive.” Qian Jiannong added.

FOSUN TOURISM has always been committed to creating a vertical ecosystem in the field of culture and tourism, and Thomas Cook plays a critical role in this system. Thomas Cook’s new lifestyle platform is based on Fosun’s FC2M ecosystem and is a digitally innovative product that has direct access to consumers’ C-end portals. FOLIDAY Town is committed to creating a lifestyle that conforms to the era of smart technology. FOLIDAY Town embodies the "3F" core concept of FOLIDAY advocated by Fosun Tourism, namely Family, Friend, Fun. It is also a relatively comprehensive product within FOLIDAY system, which represents FOSUN TOURISM’s core concept of creating the model of future family leisure and vacation lifestyle. Besides, FOSUN TOURISM’s rich and diversified core products like parent-child brand Miniversity, entertainment brand Fanxiu, etc, all will use their own innovative attributes to optimize the FOLIDAY tourism and leisure ecosystem, and to strengthen and satisfy the personalized needs in multi-scenario of family vacation and urban life.