Réau, Bertrand

Create Your Own World - 2007.


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Offering sport or entertainment activities combined with transport, accommodation or catering is today a formula found in many hotels, camping sites or holiday residences. Yet, the idea to wrap these services into an “all-inclusive” formula emerged more than fifty years ago in very peculiar circums-tances: between 1948 and 1950, some members of the Racing Club de France water-polo team and their relatives created several holiday resorts. This formula, epitom-ized today in the Club Méditerranée, raises questions about the need to create a social game outside of everyday society: the invent-ion of a specific sector of cultural activities lends itself to becoming a self-promoting and re-conversion tool for actors well endowed with capital but momentarily depriv-ed of outlets.