Did you know that Club Med was founded by the Belgian Gérard Blitz?

27/06/2016

Club Méditerranée project was created on 27 April 1950 by a former member of the Belgian water polo team, Gérard Blitz. The idea came to him following a visit to his sister at the Club Olympique de Calvi in Corsica in 1949. For its first season, he called on his pre-war sports friends and friends from the Resistance, with whom he had managed the reintegration of Belgian nationals returning from the concentration camps, on behalf of the Belgian government, in a Swiss hotel at Engelberg.

An area of land without running water or electricity was rented at Alcudia, a small fishing village in northern Majorca; 200 tents and cooking equipment were transported by rail from Spain. In welcoming the first guests and involving them in the running of the camp, an idea dear to Gérard Blitz was born.  This idea that would underpin the global success of the concept, namely enabling people to meet by abolishing financial, class and religious barriers for the duration of the holiday.