• 12th March 2015

Robinson reaches out

Robinson Club’s Sabine Ernst believes that the days of sunlounger battles are long gone – at least at the higher end of the market.

At Robinson Club we have 24 four-star plus club hotels in holiday destinations around the world, and up to now the vast majority of our guests have been German, albeit with quite a strong secondary Asian market in places like the Maldives. But now we want to open our resorts up to the British traveller, so we’ve just launched our new English-language website.

Let’s deal with the old clichés first. I don’t think there’s going to be any conflict over the sunloungers, as in all the old jokes. We’ve got more than enough sunloungers for everyone, and they can’t be reserved. Quite frankly, if you can afford to come to a Robinson Club, you are not the sort of person to conform to clichés anyway. I think we Germans and British get along very well; we have far more similarities than differences.

Our name is a useful bridge to the British market. It is of course a reference to Robinson Crusoe and has connotations of the feeling of freedom on a tropical island. Meanwhile the ‘club’ part carries images of exclusivity, particularly for Germans, for whom going on a Robinson Club holiday is a bit of a status symbol, a bit like owning a Mercedes.

We don’t see much difference in the expectations of German and British holidaymakers when it comes to what we offer, so we don’t think we’re going to have to change very much in resort; after all, along with everything else, we already have baked beans available for our breakfasts! We will have to make sure that our local staff speak good English, of course, especially in the kids clubs. We will be introducing daily news-sheets in English, and have more non-verbal entertainment, particularly music.

All in all, it is our quality and our key destinations, places like Crete, Mallorca and the Algarve, which should make us popular with British travellers. Likewise with what we offer, with all manner of watersports and activities included, just like at Club Med. So come on you British, come and try us out!