Lindeman closure means Club Med out of Australia
Club Med has announced it will close their resort on Lindeman Island at the end of January 2012,
until a suitable investor is found to whom it can sell the property in the Whitsunday Islands.
Paul Nyholt and Wayne Bunz of CBRE Hotels Queensland have been appointed to sell the resort and have commenced discussions with potential purchasers ahead of a proposed public marketing campaign early in the new year.
In line with Club Med’s international strategy to move upmarket and driven by the changing expectations of its guests since 2005, the company has surged upscale to reach out and retain their valued clientele and to attract new clientele. Club Med has made the decision to move on from Lindeman Island, but will continue to actively search for a new Australian resort location that will mirror the new global standards. The aim is for Club Med globally to have over 65% of their resorts worldwide in the upscale 4 to 5 Trident category.
No forward bookings have been taken by Club Med after the proposed closure date of Jan 31, 2012, so no guests will be inconvenienced.
Club Med’s number one priority will be assisting their employees in every way possible for future employment by assisting staff to find employment on neighbouring Whitsunday islands.
This plan recognises that their island expertise is invaluable. All GOs (Club Med’s international staff members) will be relocated to other resorts around the world, as per the normal Club Med six monthly rotational operations.
“It was an extremely difficult decision for Club Med to make, as the Resort is a firm favourite with our Australian and New Zealand guests,” says Quentin Briard, general manager of Club Med Australia & New Zealand. “But our on-going research shows that more and more, our guests want our new premium all-inclusive product and Lindeman’s 3 Trident status (the only one in Asia Pacific) was not in that category. So in order to meet our customer’s expectations, we have to now seek a new resort in Australia.
The Queensland government was told of the shock decision last week.
Recent cyclones and the downturn in the global tourism industry have hastened the demise of the property. Australia’s tourism business has been stung hard this year by Queensland’s natural disasters, a reduction in overseas visitors from countries affected by the global economic downturn. Regional tourism has also suffered from staff drifting away from the services industry to work in the much more lucrative mining sector.
The 218-room three-star Whitsunday Islands resort, which is 30 minutes from Hamilton Island by boat, is set among 690 hectares of World Heritage National Park. Club Med took the property over in 1992 and in its heyday it was marketed as a singles resort. In recent years the focus has switched to families.
Club Med had been discussing several options for the resort, including a major renovation.
It is understood the French based Club Med had also been in discussions to sell the property to another international hotel chain. When these talks collapsed the decision was made to shut the company’s only Australian property. The lease requires Club Med to keep a skeleton staff on the island to maintain the buildings and provide security.
In a statement Club Med said its priority would be assisting employees to find work on neighbouring Whitsunday islands and that it will be engaging the services of an outsourcing company to assist all the employees.
Tourism minister Jan Jarratt said her immediate concerns were for the staff and that she had asked the office of the minister for employment, skills and mining to consider deploying the rapid response team to help impacted workers find new jobs in the region. “This is a blow, but it won’t destroy the confidence of the Whitsunday tourism industry,” she said.
Ms Jarratt said Hayman Island had just completed a multi-million dollar refurbishment and looked better
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