Eric Georges: “People’s desire for vacations, especially Belgians, has never been so strong”
The CEO of Club Med Benelux is a pure product of the company created by Gérard Blitz. From GO tennis to CEO and chef de Villages, he has traveled the world. He worked for the first time in Belgium, his native country.
The Royal Léopold Club, or the very chic omnisports club in Uccle, is undoubtedly the only sports club in Brussels where bridge is still played. Nicknamed the “Leo” by its members, we meet mainly regulars and, at the end of Wednesday afternoon, mainly mothers who carry the children’s sports bags while their offspring drag hockey sticks in the rain.
We have an appointment at the Club bar, where a generation of parents who have finished raising theirs, cheerfully thread pools of roses on high tables. This is where we observe Eric Georges, CEO of Club Med Benelux, entering the establishment a good 15 minutes early. Physically, he sports a basket style and pulls wool tied on his jacket. For the rest, he seems to belong to the genre “who knows everyone”, namely the customers, the players, the boss and even the waitresses.
From the outset, we tell ourselves that this is a great breakthrough in the hushed world of Brussels chic for someone who has spent nearly 40 years abroad. “It’s really fun, it’s the first time in my life that I work in my country. It was a wish, I wanted to get closer to my roots, “he explains, climbing up on the stool.
It all started on a course
The bar, he chose it because he frequents the club, but also because this is where it all started. Eric Georges was then 20 years old, no diploma and gave tennis lessons to earn a living. By chance, he responds to a classified ad for Club Med, then looking for a teacher to hit the ball and it is here, on one of the Léo’s fields that he has his job interview. The next day, “departure for France”. Six years later, he was appointed Village Chief in Bermuda. “I had the qualities that the Club was looking for, I was very athletic and I had the languages. At that time, in Flanders, we were already learning French in first primary.”
When he returned five years ago, the native of Antwerp explains taking “five minutes to find your bearings, because nothing has really changed since then”.
At the Club Med school
Son aperitif? A rosé with lots of ice cubes. “I drink little, because if I drink it is always a disaster,” he adds jokingly. After the “tchin” which makes the glasses clink, he confides that when you leave your country, you never really know why. It is only years later that we realize why on a take off. “In Belgium, I had the feeling that I would have received the same choice and the same education as everyone else, the same schools, the same education.”
“With Club Med, I have lived on 5 continents, I have met people from all cultures, from all walks of life, from all social categories.”
“With Club Med, I have lived on five continents, I have met people from all cultures, from all walks of life, from all social categories. On the one hand my colleagues, on the other the clients, experiences that have made me a particularly tolerant and open-minded person. And then, as my father used to say, I would never have had such a great career staying here. ”
Landing in Belgium, which he finds again, Eric Georges explains that he is delighted that multiculturality is so present in Brussels, even if he regrets the “sectarian” side which tends to worsen between French-speaking and Flemish. “Or, language is never more than a means of communicating, and when I hear on the one hand ‘Flemings don’t like Francophones’, or “Francophones don’t want to be Flemings”, I say to myself: what hell ! There, I really find that things have not evolved in the right direction. If, multiculturally, the country has opened up, communally, it is quite the opposite. ”
Yet he adds that Belgium remains a very welcoming countryexcept administratively where no one can compete with Germany. “When I arrived there to work, in two hours everything was settled, my papers, my home and even my tax regime. Conversely, I left Milan after 18 months, I still did not have a paper in order, not even my identity card, “he laughs, finishing his drink.
“Many village leaders are now pursuing masters in parallel, we have also created a University of talents to promote internal progression.”
When asked if, according to him, it is still possible to have careers like his and go from GO to CEO (Benelux), Eric Georges jumps from his stool and asks permission to drop the jacket. Honestly, he is convinced of it, but for that, “you have to want it, it’s not easy to leave the idyllic life that you have in the villages, you need real reasons. I was my family. However, many village leaders are now pursuing masters in parallel, a University of talents has also been created to promote internal progression. And then, finally, we must not forget the impact of the opening of a resort on a region. We hire 200 to 300 people, mostly locals and indirectly, through subcontracting. We also touch 300 to 400 people, it is not nothing anyway “.
The Covid Test
The impact of the health crisis and the future of travel in a time of global warming? He won’t give us numbers, but clearly, “close all the clubs for four months, you had to have a solid reins to hold on. Fortunately, thanks to the move upmarket decided by Henri Giscard d’Estaing (CEO of Club Med) years ago, we were able to get through the crisis. It is also this vision that enabled the group to go through that of 2008 ”.
“Thanks to the move upmarket decided by Henri Giscard d’Estaing years ago, we were able to get through the crisis. It is also this vision that enabled the group to get through that of 2008.”
In any case, what he notices is that people’s desire for vacations, especially Belgians, has never been so strong. “It’s interesting, because when Gérard Blitz created the first Club Med in 1950, people were coming out of the war, they needed to live, to be in nature and to be together. And today, in these post-Covid crisis times, desires are the same, people are looking for social or family reconnection, they need large spaces and feel the urge to play sport. What is likely to change is that they will be leaving for longer and perhaps less often. ”
The owner of the bar passes a head to the table, and explains to have known Eric while he was still working in a Village. “Did he tell you he was GO before?” He asks, then suggests a glass of rosé for the house. “Come on Eric, it’s Ramatuelle, and Ramatuelle, it never hurts!” And as Eric Georges is a faithful man, he was unable to say “no” to the boss.
What are you drinking ?
Favorite aperitif: I love beer, but I switched to rosé because it has less sugar.
A table: Red wine. Depending on the periods of my life and the regions where I lived, I went from Bordeaux to Côtes-du-Rhône, then to Languedoc, before discovering the Italians.
Food : recently, after an aperitif with my hockey friends, I went back to my brother’s restaurant “Aunt Yvonne”. I stayed there until 3 a.m.
Who to pay for a drink: I would have liked to be at the table of Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré during that famous 1969 interview for Rock & Folk magazine.
The CEO of Club Med Benelux in 5 dates
1978: When I was 18, I spent my first vacation with my 7 childhood friends on the Costa Brava. We are still friends.
1986: I went from head of sports to head of Village in Bermuda, a 650 bed club.
1988: I am getting married in Senegal with Christine, who also worked at the Club. On launches the construction of our family.
1996: back to civilization. I am leaving the “villages” to return to normal life. Still for Club Med, but in Vienna.
2016: back to basics. I come back to Belgium, my country where I had never worked in my life.