For more than 75 years, tourism trailblazer Club Med has promoted a culture of esprit libre (free-spirited travel) for vacationers around the world. Founded in France in 1950, the company introduced the world to the all-inclusive resort. It has since grown into a global hospitality powerhouse with more than 70 premium resorts across five continents and local websites in 35 markets.

In 2024, Club Med undertook the ambitious task of re-templating and harmonizing its entire global website to ensure consistent branding, scalability, and performance. Its goal: grow direct online bookings and improve findability and clarity for travelers, from childcare availability to included amenities, while reducing dependence on call centers.

The Challenge

From Search Box to Trip Discovery

As Club Med revamped its site and mobile experience across markets, search became central to the traveler’s journey. The company wanted to elevate search from a simple utility to a strategic starting point for inspiration and booking.

“We wanted search to feel like a guide: fast, helpful, and aligned with how guests plan trips,” says Alexandre Painchart, Product Owner at Club Med.

The team also faced a governance challenge: each of the 35 local markets required flexibility to manage their own merchandising rules, while the central product team shipped weekly updates through a shared template.

The Solution

Guided, Federated, and Flexible Search

To deliver a faster, smarter, and more localized experience, Club Med rebuilt its search on Algolia, integrating multiple features to support both inspiration and booking.

The new federated discovery experience spans Resorts (products), Cruises & Tours, and Inspiration (destination content). Visitors can now search across all categories from one interface with guided entry that includes trending queries, user search history, and curated suggestions specific to each market.

Search results now qualify users through indexed fields like dates, duration, and participant details (adults/children), while contextual pricing is displayed directly from backend data. This lets travelers explore available offers with full transparency.

Algolia’s flexibility also enables Club Med’s central team to deploy updates weekly, while local markets manage their own merchandising rules and relevance tuning. This balance of governance empowers regions to adapt content to local demand without compromising brand consistency.

To refine relevance, the team is planning to leverage Dynamic Re-Ranking while testing its impact against local manual rules. Club Med is also expanding its use of Query Suggestions and Collections, helping local teams surface seasonal promotions and curated experiences dynamically.

“Algolia lets us blend speed with control: federated results, dates/participants, and local market curation at scale,” adds Maroua Chouari, QA Automation Engineer at Club Med.

The Results

Faster Journeys, Greater Conversions

Since implementing Algolia, Club Med has seen faster and more relevant search experiences across its websites. Visitors are spending less time searching and more time discovering destinations, helping more travelers begin and complete their journey online.

Search is now driving measurable improvements in user engagement: higher click-through rates, and faster time-to-result, all contributing to an uplift in online bookings and a reduction in call center sales.

The team is also integrating GA4, ContentSquare, and Algolia Analytics to track metrics such as CTR, funnel entries, no-results rates, and A/B test results. These insights will guide ongoing improvements to relevance and discoverability.

“Search is now a strategic lever for growing direct online bookings,” says Lisa, E-commerce Product Manager at Club Med. “Our next step is personalization and conversational discovery.”

What’s Next

Club Med is continuing its journey toward more personalized and conversational search experiences. Near-term goals include:

• Expanding the Inspiration tab to highlight destination and editorial content.
• Improving event hygiene by refining queryID and userToken tracking.
• Running A/B tests comparing AI Re-Ranking with local rules and exploring Personalization features.
• Piloting Algolia Agent Studio for conversational trip planning and dynamic content delivery.

With Algolia, Club Med has transformed search into a scalable foundation for discovery,  guiding travelers from curiosity to booking with speed, clarity, and inspiration.