My father set the tone. I simply followed the score.
The move upmarket, from 1976
The move upmarket at Esterel Caravaning didn’t begin when I took over. It started with my father, in 1976, the day he decided to open a campsite with two swimming pools, two tennis courts, a bar, a separate restaurant, a grocery store, a snack bar, a clubhouse, a hair salon (!) and private bathrooms on the first eighteen pitches. Even then, it was an ambition nobody else had. He had set the tone for the score we would play for 50 years.
When I took over in 1995, the site was 20 years old and showing its age. The electric terminals were the same ones from opening day. The chairs were plastic. The bar didn’t look like a bar. I took stock: footfall was falling because we were ageing. And we were ageing because we didn’t have enough turnover to invest. A vicious circle. The only way out, was to take risks.
Club Med, then hospitality
From the beginning, inspiration came from looking at references. At first, it was Club Med. We’d go as a family, to Africa, to rest and find ideas at the same time. The kids’ club, the creative workshop, the entertainment… We observed all these services, adapted them, improved them. And then we surpassed them on many counts.
Later, the inspiration shifted to traditional hotels. My favourite example: the flower arrangements in the lobby of the Carlton hotel in Cannes – enormous, overflowing, breathtaking. Every time I walk in, I think: “Wow.” And I tell myself: the day every family has that same reaction arriving at Esterel Caravaning, I will have succeeded. We have 280,000 flowers on the campsite, and we plant 10,000 every year. That day hasn’t come yet.
Constant sourcing
My method is sourcing. I never go anywhere without observing, noting, comparing. In 1998, before designing the bar, I visited every trendy bar in Paris – cocktail after cocktail, notebook in hand. What appeared everywhere, what was missing, what was practical to clean, what wasn’t. That work, nobody sees it. But it’s in every corner of the bar.
That same eye led me to private spas. When the first ones appeared on campsites, they were shared, lost in the water parks. To me, that’s not relaxation. I had just renovated my home and installed a whirlpool bath so I could bathe year-round, in privacy. Naturally, I thought of Esterel Caravaning. A private spa attached to the mobile home, just like at home. I was the first in France to offer this luxury feature on a campsite. Today, 60 mobile homes and pitches are equipped with one.
This move upmarket has never stopped. The fifth star arrived in 2011. A confirmation, not a revelation. Since 1976, we have invested €40 million. Not a single year without investment. And it’s not over. The new VIP XXL units are arriving – sleeping ten, electric car included. The upmarket journey doesn’t stop. It reinvents itself. It is constant.
Between us: Sarongs in the Australian bush
In 2011, I spent three weeks travelling Australia by campervan. Every morning at dawn, I toured the campsites, pen and paper in hand, listing everything I noticed. I looked for what was better than back home. What struck me most was the complete absence of privacy. No separation between pitches. Families living on top of one another, parked bumper to bumper, with a direct view of the neighbours.
So I bought a long washing line. And for three weeks, from campsite to campsite, I hung my sarongs at each corner of my pitch, stretched out like sails, to carve out my own space and privacy. The other campers looked at us strangely. We must have looked like we’d set up a Provençal market in the middle of the Australian bush.
Back home, I launched a large-scale planting programme for the pitches at Esterel Caravaning. Hedges, shrubs, flowers – so that every guest truly feels at home. That sheltered, preserved sense of space is still what I strive to offer.
– Aurore
