Gilbert Trigano

摘要

Aa often happens when a project turns out to be as successful as Club Med, there is some disagreement about who should have the credit. Some would give it to Gerard Blitz, a Belgian who in the 1920s and 1930s had won several Olympic medals for swimming and water polo. After the second world war he was running transit camps for Belgian soldiers returning home. He bought tarpaulins and other useful materials from a French factory owned by Gilbert Trigano's family. Gerard suggested to Gilbert (or it may have been the other way round) that, with Europe at peace, they should get into the holiday business. In 1950 they bought some American army surplus tents and camp beds, set them up in a pine wood on the Spanish island of Majorca and called the cnerprise Club Mediterranee.