The family who helped found the Club Med resorts, once renowned for their hedonistic “sea, sex and sun” mantra, are opening their first-ever UK hotel in Hackney — with free porn in every room.
Serge Trigano, son of Club Med pioneer Gilbert Trigano, and Gilbert’s grandsons Jeremie and Benjamin, are launching the Mama Shelter hotel in London next week... 69 years after the first Club Med “village” opened on the beach at Alcudia in Majorca.
These days, under new owners, Club Med is known for luxury family holidays where an all-inclusive week in the sun can cost more than £10,000. However, the Triganos say they are bringing the original pleasure-seeking ideals of Club Med in the Seventies to the new 195-room hotel. It has two karaoke rooms in the basement, table football, giant board games, and cartoon masks in every bedroom — as well as free unlimited access to movies and “ethical” porn.
Serge Trigano, ousted from the business in 1997 following a takeover, said: “We don’t sell rooms, we don’t sell food, we sell happiness. We live in a crazy world that is being run by crazy people everywhere you turn, there seem to be so many reasons to be afraid, including Brexit. My dream is that if you come to Mama Shelter you can forget about it all — even if it’s just for one night.”
Mr Trigano said holidays were increasingly about shorter breaks to big cities rather than long family vacations by the sea. He said London had always been their second target after Paris, where the first Mama Shelter opened in 2008. The family looked at other potential sites including the former Crowne Plaza in Shoreditch and the Trocadero in Piccadilly before settling on the Hackney site, with rooms from £99 a night.
At its height Club Med had more than 100 resorts all over the world but was never a big hit with Brits, who only made up five per cent of customers and were thought to be “too reserved” to appreciate its concept. Its unofficial slogan was immortalised by French singer Serge Gainsbourg, who sang Sea, Sex and Sun in a 1978 movie about Club Med.
