How Club Med changed holidays

Holidaymakers arrived at the first Club Med resort on the Spanish island of Majorca in summer 1950. The French company - full name Club Méditerranée - was founded to offer a new kind of post-war holiday by Belgian water polo player Gérard Blitz, who believed that "the time to be happy is now". The facilities were initially rudimentary, with guests sleeping in huts and sharing tables at meals - but the all-inclusive holiday model they pioneered soon spread all over the world. Lucy Burns speaks to Pierre-Xavier Bécret, whose parents worked on that first Majorca holiday and went on to be involved with Club Med for many years. Picture: postcard image of the Club Med resort in Corfu, 1970s (Editions Intercolor, with thanks to www.collierbar.fr)