KwaZulu-Natal will soon be welcoming its first Club Med beach resort.
According to Tourism Update, Club Med, a French luxury holiday resort company, has been wanting to develop in South Africa, with its eye on a number of locations for over a decade, and will be putting €62.4 million (R1 billion) into this project.
The new resort, which is still to be developed, will be less than 10 kilometres from King Shaka International Airport in Tinley Town, not far north of Ballito.
According to reports, this Club Med resort will have 350 rooms and 50 villas, with an exclusive beach in a beautiful bay. The resort will be built on a 30-hectare plot of land, owned by the Tongaat Hulett Devlopmentts. They recently signed the Memorandum of Agreement with Club Med for its development. The site is Tinley Manor, which belongs to the Tongaat Hulett portfolio, and is considered prime property on the KZN Eastern Seaboard, with the Umhlali River forming the site’s northern boundary. This will be the first international-branded beach resort on Southern African shores.
Managing Director of Club Med Southern Africa, Olivia Hannaert, noted that there is a still a way to go before this project can truly take off. ‘There is still a long way to go before the commencement of work but, nevertheless, all parties are excited and working hard toward shaping the first Club Med resort in South Africa,’ Hannaert said.
She said that while domestic travel is dictated by the likes of school holidays and seasonal trends in the South African travel market, the luxury of Club Med will be expecting to host the international market a lot more. ‘South Africa is an attractive destination for the 48 countries that are selling Club Med,’ she said, adding that the resort will likely also be ideal for business and conferencing.
Currently the only other Club Med resorts in Africa are in Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal.
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