Middle-class tourists spend 30,000 yuan on a single trip, and Guo Guangchang's leading star cultural tourism business is poised for an IPO.

Guo Guangchang has launched another impact on the capital market.

In March this year, the news that Club Med, a time-honored international resort brand under Fosun, is considering an IPO spread quickly. At that time, Fosun responded to the outside world that "there is no clear capital market plan at present".

On the evening of August 28, Fosun International (00656.HK) officially disclosed that the company has submitted an application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for approval to spin off its subsidiary Club Med Lifestyle Group (hereinafter referred to as Club Med) for independent listing on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On the same day, Club Med submitted listing application materials to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Just like Sanya Atlantis, Club Med originally belonged to Fosun Tourism and Culture (hereinafter referred to as Fosun Tourism Group), the former cultural tourism listing platform of the Fosun system, which completed privatization and delisting in March last year, and then multiple cultural tourism assets returned to the system of Fosun International.

But Guo Guangchang is obviously not willing to stop here. After Sanya Atlantis sought the declaration of REITs project in March this year, Club Med has now embarked on the path of capitalization.

Time Finance noted that as the performance pillar of Fosun Tourism Group, many members of Club Med's core management team are from the senior management of Fosun Tourism Group. Now, nearly a year and a half after the privatization of Fosun Tourism Group, Guo Guangchang will take Club Med to revisit its Hong Kong stock listing dream.

The "world's largest resort" is increasingly favored by China's middle class

For many seasoned travelers, Club Med is no stranger.

Club Med is a time-honored resort brand originating from Europe, founded in France in 1950. In the early days, it took Europe as the center to carry out global expansion, and extended its resort scenarios from beaches to mountains, skiing and other fields.

Up to now, Club Med operates 69 high-end resorts around the world. According to data from CIC, calculated by the turnover in 2025, Club Med is the world's largest resort brand, and also the world's largest all-inclusive resort brand.

According to the prospectus, from 2023 to 2025, Club Med recorded revenues of 1.862 billion euros, 1.923 billion euros and 1.949 billion euros respectively, and recorded 1.083 billion euros in the first half of 2026 (equivalent to about 84.4 billion RMB).

Affected by the recognized tax losses, Club Med recorded net profits of 68.768 million euros, 29.604 million euros and 10.917 million euros from 2023 to 2025, showing a significant shrinking trend; in the first half of 2026, it recorded a net profit of 57.125 million euros (equivalent to about 445 million RMB).

As an all-inclusive resort, Club Med provides guests with a full range of services at the travel destination, including transportation, accommodation, catering, childcare, local cultural experiences and a wealth of other entertainment activities.

Zhang Jing (pseudonym), a consumer who has experienced Club Med's projects, told Time Finance that if it is a ski-focused resort, the services will also include ski equipment rental, ski courses and so on. Zhang Jing also mentioned that compared with general hotel vacations, Club Med usually has a "butler" who will lead guests to participate in various outdoor exploration or handicraft activities during their stay, "They have a dedicated daily activity schedule."

The prospectus also repeatedly mentions that the unique G.O. (Gentle Organizers) butler culture is one of Club Med's core competitiveness. This also makes Club Med's operating cost not low. According to the prospectus, Club Med's operations are labor-intensive and involve a large number of fixed and semi-fixed costs. For 2025 and the six months ended June 30, 2026, the fixed operating costs of the resorts (mainly including wages, salaries and welfare expenses, facility maintenance costs, etc.) accounted for 46.3% and 47.2% of the cost of revenue respectively.

However, this unique vacation and lifestyle has attracted many middle-class tourists. The prospectus mentions that the Asia-Pacific region is the company's fastest growing market, and its growth is driven by factors such as the expansion of the middle class and the rise in per capita expenditure.

Among them, China is a particularly important potential market. Since Fosun's acquisition, Club Med has successively launched projects in Guilin, Zhuhai, Sanya, Yabuli of Harbin and other places; in recent years, it has launched local product lines "Club Med Joyview" and "Club Med Urban Oasis", which have been deployed in Qiandao Lake of Hangzhou, Xianlin of Nanjing and other places.

According to the prospectus, up to now, Club Med has 12 projects in China, and plans to continue to deploy mountain ski resorts in Northeast China in the future, and the number of global projects is planned to expand to about 85 by 2030.

The unit price of such high-end vacation projects targeting middle-class customers is not low. The data shows that the average value of each Club Med order exceeds 4,000 euros (equivalent to about 31,000 RMB). Calculated according to the average daily bed price, this figure was 261 euros in the first half of 2026, and it has been rising continuously in the past few years.

Affected by factors such as the global economic environment and high consumption thresholds, from 2023 to 2025, the number of guests received by Club Med remained at about 1.5 million person-times, and the occupancy rate calculated by beds remained at about 62%, with no significant growth.

However, the number of Chinese tourists is still growing. Xu Bingbin, former Co-President of Fosun Tourism Group and CEO of Club Med China, once pointed out in an interview in 2023 that it is expected that the number of customers from China in that year will be about 340,000 to 350,000 person-times, while the number of Chinese customers in 2019 was 250,000 person-times.

At that time, Xu Bingbin said that the company's goal is to make the Chinese market the largest source of customers for Club Med globally in terms of visitor person-times by 2025.

Guo Guangchang's "favorite asset", seeking IPO again after privatization

It can be said that Guo Guangchang has a special affection for Club Med.

As early as 2010, Guo Guangchang took action on this resort brand. Although subsequent competitors kept offering higher quotations than Fosun International, Guo Guangchang was determined to acquire Club Med.

In March 2015, Club Med SAS (then listed on Euronext Paris) became an indirect subsidiary of Fosun International and delisted from Euronext Paris in March 2015. The total consideration of its privatization was about 916 million euros, which was also the longest acquisition battle in the history of French securities transactions at that time.

After that, Fosun packaged cultural tourism assets including Club Med and Sanya Atlantis into Fosun Tourism Group, which officially rang the listing bell on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2018 with the stock code 01992. However, the external environment and market trend were not optimistic at that time. Fosun Tourism Group's public offering only received 6.4748 million subscription applications, equivalent to 30% of the initial 21.42 million subscribable shares, and its share price fell below the issue price on the first day of listing.

During the seven years after listing, Fosun Tourism Group's share price mostly hovered below HK$10. In 2025, Fosun Tourism Group delisted from the Hong Kong stock market.

In Fosun Tourism Group's asset portfolio, Club Med is the largest contributor. In 2023, Fosun Tourism Group achieved a turnover of 18.13 billion RMB, of which Club Med's revenue was 15.12 billion RMB, accounting for 83% of the total, and Sanya Atlantis contributed nearly 10%.

One year after Fosun Tourism Group's delisting, Fosun International launched the official application for public offering REITs with Atlantis Hotel and Aquaventure as the underlying assets, with the underlying assets valued at 13.928 billion RMB.

Greater ambition is also reflected in the layout of Club Med.

The prospectus shows that independent listing can provide the group with an independent financing platform to raise funds for existing business, future resort expansion, brand development and capacity building, without relying mainly on Fosun International.

Time Finance noted that many members of Club Med's core management team are from the senior management of Fosun Tourism Group.

Among them, Xu Xiaoliang serves as the chairman of the company's board of directors, and Bao Jun serves as the chief executive officer. Both of them previously held important positions in Fosun Tourism Group. The entire management team also includes Xu Bingbin, who has long been in charge of Fosun's cultural tourism investment, Stéphane Samuel MAQUAIRE, the head of Club Med's local business, and many other executives who have rich experience in cultural tourism accumulated over many years in the Fosun system.

This time, will the capital market pay for Club Med's growth story?

This article is from the WeChat official account "Time Finance APP" (ID: tf-app), author: Lin Xinlin, editor: Li Qian, published with authorization from 36Kr.