Fosun Tourism Group Launches Thomas Cook Lifestyle Platform to Intensify Development of FOLIDAY Ecosystem

18 July 2020, In adherence to the vision of bringing more happiness to global families, Fosun Tourism Group (“Fosun Tourism” or “FTG”, Stock code: 1992) today releases globally a brand-new Thomas Cook, which was originated in the UK and has a history of nearly 180 years. With the launch of the digital lifestyle platform based on Fosun's FC2M ecosystem, Fosun's FOLIDAY ecosystem will become more perfect.

Qian Jiannong, Chairman and CEO of Fosun Tourism, said, "Thomas Cook has gained a lot of glories in its nearly 180-year history. It is the forerunner of the tourism industry that took the lead in achieving many things. It was one of the largest travel operators in the world. Today we endow Thomas Cook with a new life and a more ambitious vision of 'bringing more happiness to global families'."

Thomas Cook Lifestyle Platform is an important part of FOLIDAY global ecosystem and a digital platform for brand-new FOLIDAY lifestyle. Also, it directly serves customers of Fosun Tourism and will become a landmark FC2M platform for the leisure tourism industry.

The "F" in FC2M stands for both Fosun and Family. For Fosun Tourism, "F" represents FOLIDAY, a C2M ecosystem built by Fosun Tourism to promote brand-new FOLIDAY lifestyle. Specifically, Fosun Tourism directly reaches out to customers through Thomas Cook Lifestyle Platform. Besides, Fosun Tourism enables customisation based on technologies and in line with changes in recreation and travel demands of customers, and accurately develops and gradually upgrades good M-end products. Fosun Tourism's strategic layout in the leisure tourism industry chain allows for full coverage of family travel needs. Fosun Tourism also offers good products to customers through online and offline integrated scenarios, thus creating a vertical C2M ecosystem.

Thomas Cook Lifestyle Platform, based on FC2M ecosystem, is poised to satisfy the brand-new needs of global families for diversified and high-quality travel services. It directly serves consumers, providing them with a variety of core products and high-quality membership privilege services to strengthen and meet their multi-scenario and personalised demands of family travel and urban living.

Fosun Tourism is committed to building a vertical ecosystem in culture and tourism, and Thomas Cook plays an essential role in such an ecosystem. Qian Jiannong, Chairman and CEO of Fosun Tourism of Fosun Tourism, said, "Since our investment in Club Med Bali in 2010, we have gradually created an offline scenario based on resorts and tourist attractions through acquisition and self-incubation, as well as products and service offerings based on the offline scenario. The roll-out of Thomas Cook Lifestyle Platform signifies that Fosun Tourism has completed the building of a vertical ecosystem from offline scenarios and resources, to product offerings, and to customers, so it is very important for Fosun Tourism."

At the same time, by leveraging multi-form operations and unique resource advantages within FOLIDAY ecosystem such as international first-tier resorts, hotel management, travel agencies and parent-child experiential education, Thomas Cook can offer exclusive resources and privileges. Meanwhile, it fully understands consumer needs via online and offline scenarios like interactive marketing and life communities, integrates the best products and services across the world, and creates better value for customers.

Thomas Cook Lifestyle Platform not only sells all FOLIDAY lifestyle-related products but also allows for realising a new concept of leisure travel and a new lifestyle. In the future, with the growth of consumers, the platform is expected to continue to improve.

Thomas Cook, a Global Pioneer in Tourism Industry with a History Nearly 180 Years

Looking back in history, Thomas Cook, founded in 1841, is a world-famous travel agency in the UK and is recognised as a global pioneer in tourism industry in modern times. It has been committed to providing tourism services to hundreds of millions of family customers around the world for 180 years.

Thomas Cook brand took the lead in achieving many things in the world. It organised the world's first tour, making around-the-world travel a reality. It developed and published the world's first travel guide and released the earliest traveller's checks.

After a hundred years of operations, Thomas Cook has developed into a tourism giant with travel agencies, hotels and airline operations in 16 countries.

Thomas Cook opened its first office in Hong Kong as early as 1906 and offices in Beijing and Shanghai prior to the 1911 Revolution. It had its own airline and commenced aviation operations in China in 1936. In 1975, Thomas Cook organised another tour group to China.

In 2015, Fosun re-established Thomas Cook's relationship with China, establishing a joint venture travel agency called "托邁酷客" with Thomas Cook in China. In 2019, Fosun Tourism acquired Thomas Cook global brands from Thomas Cook Group Plc., as well as its subsidiaries, with an aim of building new Thomas Cook into a lifestyle service platform directly for global family customers so that brand-new Thomas Cook can continue its 180-year glory history in modern times.

Club Med and Casa Cook Hotels Collection Create a Lifestyle Tourism Brand Matrix through Multiple Parties' Efforts

On the same day when Thomas Cook brand was launched, Club Med, the largest resorts group worldwide under Fosun Tourism Group, also entered into a contract with Luneng Group, Tangshan Hot Spring Resort and Forte Group, respectively, in relation to the resort projects to be constructed in China, namely the Qiandao Lake project (千島湖項目), Nanjing Tangshan Project (南京湯山項目) and Nanjing Xianlin Project (南京仙林項目).

All those three contracted projects will be operated through Club Med Joyview. Club Med Joyview in one of three major product lines of Club Med Group, which is a new resort product launched according to the development trend of the tourism market in China. Club Med Joyview aims to provide exquisite short trip experience for Chinese tourists. Club Med Joyview’s resorts are basically located within two to three hours’ drive from first-tier cities so as to meet the short-trip holiday needs of families and corporate consumers in first-tier cities.

Henri Giscard D'estaing, Global President of Club Med, said, “Club Med has been committed to expanding under an asset-light business model since 2015. Currently, China is not only the second tourist generating region after France, but also there are 7 Club Med resorts which are highly praised in China. In the future, we will further adopt the asset-light business model to exploit Chinese market. We have a series of resort projects under construction, such as Tangshan Resort, Lijiang Resort and Changbai Mountain Resort, which will be opened in the next two years.”

During the post-pandemic period, the hotel segment of Fosun Tourism accelerated the progress to adopt the asset-light business model. On the date of the brand conference of Thomas Cook, Fosun Tourism Group also officially launched its four new hotel and resort brands and held signing ceremonies of cooperation agreement for various projects, which will further perfect its FOLIDAY ecosystem.

The four new brands include two under Thomas Cook, namely Casa Cook, an award-winning high-end lifestyle hotel brand, and Cook's Club, a new-generation boutique lifestyle hotel brand with party culture as its core, as well as two derivative brands, namely Cook's Home, a new-generation apartment hotel brand, and Casa City, a family urban lifestyle brand. The brand collection will further enhance the differentiated competitiveness of Fosun Tourism in China's tourism market in line with the concept of fine operations and forward-looking international tourism management. They fully cover the constantly upgrading travel needs of middle and high-end customer groups through multiple travel scenarios.

At present, Casa Cook and Cook's Club have eight hotels in other countries, namely Greece, Egypt, Bulgaria, Spain, and Turkey. On the day of release of the brands, Fosun Tourism signed strategic cooperation agreements with China CYTS Tours Holding Co., Ltd., Xiamen International Trade Group, Zhejiang Yongjia Tourism Investment Group and Hainan Visun Property Holdings Co.,LTD. to jointly develop cultural and tourism projects across China. It also signed contracts with Chongqing Nanchuan Huinong Tourism Group, Forte Real Estate Development Group, Beijing Hengde Xinye Holdings Group and Sunup Group on four hotels and resorts that are to be launched in China, including three Cook's Club and one Casa City. In the future, Casa Cook will continue to expand its domestic and overseas territories rapidly, and focus on China's hot cities as well as the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Pearl River Delta and Hainan, etc.

Qian Jiannong, Chairman and CEO of Fosun Tourism, said, "Signing of these contracts is a milestone in the development of hotel brands of Fosun Tourism in China and demonstrates the recognition of hotel brands of Fosun Tourism by all relevant parties. As the global leader in global resort industry, Fosun Tourism will continue to refine its resort brands through Casa Cook collection on the basis of Club Med brand to consolidate its global leading position in the field. Fosun Tourism will join hands with all parties to create a full range of unique tourism products based on diversified cooperation and local conditions. Also, it will offer a vacation experience in line with the lifestyle and taste of modern travellers through a more forward-looking judgment gained from Casa Cook collection."