MGM, the Passy-based property development company whose name is synonymous with luxury and quality, is diversifying its commercial activity and becoming involved in the management of 4* tourist residences as well as a 3* hotel in Tignes. It has entrusted its newly-created subsidiary, CGH Hôtel-Rèsidences-Spas & Beautè, with the job of managing the properties since January 2005.

Based in Annecy-le-Vieux, the company is already managing six complexes offering a total of 450 top-quality apartments in the resorts of Les Saisies, La Rosière, Peisey-Vallandry, Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, Sainte-Foy-en-Tarentaise and Tignes.

It is in the Tarentaise resort of Tignes that the Écrin du Val Claret is based, a hotel with 56 rooms which is perfect for the conference and incentive market. It has numerous advantages, including three meeting rooms (30 m^2-140 m²) with space for groups of between 20 and 100 people, and the Spas Beautè & Montagne space (previously the Aquatonic centre), offering a recreational pool, saunas, steam rooms, jacuzzis, cardio training gym, beauty treatments and massages. Its location also means that the hotel, in conjunction with Evolution 2, can offer its business clients a whole range of sporting activities, both traditional sports as well as more unusual ones: ice diving and dog-sledding in the winter, 4-wheel driving and white water sports in the summer, as well as gastronomic evenings in the Chalet Bouvier restaurant which is owned by Jean-Michel Bouvier, chef at the Essentiel in Chambèry.

We intend to continue developing the conference and incentive side of our business because it’s an important area for us. Indeed we’re planning to participate at three specialist trade shows: Sèminaires & Business in Lyon, Bedouk and Rèunir in Paris, explains Michaël Bayart, sales manager for CGH Hôtels & Rèsidences. We are open from 8 July to 26 August this summer and from 2 December to 27 April next winter. For business tourism, the best period is during the month of January .

Business tourism already makes up 25% of the Écrin du Val Claret’s turnover, which is about 300,000 € and with 80% French clientele and 20% from Belgium and the Netherlands.

The business sectors most represented are medical (a seminar for radiologists) and pharmaceutical laboratories, cosmetics, banking and finance, electrical goods, car industry and marketing. We get requests directly from companies as well as via incentive agencies and Tignes Dèveloppement , continues Michaël Bayart. This summer, our rates for semi-rèsidentiel packages range from 109 to 146 € in a single room and from 91 to115 € in a twin room, including accommodation, buffet breakfast, dinner with drinks, meeting room and two refreshment breaks. Next winter the rates will rise to between 160 and 230 € for a single room and from 125 to 175 € in a twin room .

MGM is not going to stop at this first successful foray into the conference and incentive business, and is already planning longer term investments in hotels within both of the Savoyard dèpartements.