Michel Jam. Toulouse architect, he created the first four stars of the island of La Reunion, the Palm Hotel & Spa has hosted
the France team football last week.
I t's not every day that we welcome home all of the France team, football players, including medical and technical staff. A rare privilege that Michel Jam has managed to win after many months of negotiations. For their final week of preparation before the World Cup, the Blues have in fact an address at the Palm Hotel & Spa, a four star hotel open by Toulouse three years ago at Little Island in the southern island of Reunion. And that contract that puts a tremendous spotlight on the establishment with no less than 170 journalists have landed on this French island off Madagascar, owes nothing to chance. As did a few months ago the choice made by Nicolas Sarkozy also reside here during his visit to the island. Architect, Michael Jam has designed and built this hotel from A to Z, treating the smallest detail to make an exceptional place. If today with the Palm and Iloha, the other institution he has created here, it may display a little more than eleven million turnover employing 150 employees - "the real permanent employees and full time" he says, the case was far from being won. And he should probably go back in history to better understand the reason for this success. The son of a family of entrepreneurs in the building he grew up in Bourg-Saint-Bernard in the Lauragais following all his schooling in Toulouse where he earned his degree in architecture DPLG. A logical discipline for which it is defined above tout comme « quelqu’un qui aime construire, créer quelque chose à partir de rien, d’une page blanche ». Pendant une dizaine d’années il va ainsi exercer son art à Toulouse imaginant et créant les bâtiments les plus divers, « pas mal de lieux de vie, des bars restaurants, des maisons de retraites, des immeubles, ça marchait plutôt bien » se souvient-il. Son œuvre la plus connue des Toulousains restant sans doute Le Bikini. Mais il éprouve « Le besoin de se réaliser. Né d’une famille d’entrepreneurs, j’avais envie de faire quelque chose pour moi, pas uniquement pour les autres. Il décide donc de « passer de l’autre côté » sans trop savoir dans un premier temps où va le mener la réflexion qu’il conduit avec son épouse, « dans un véritable projet de vie à deux ». Une chose est sûre : il souhaite créer quelque chose dans l’univers du tourisme, tout au long de l’année. « Lorsque l’on a un hôtel en métropole, on est forcément soumis à la saisonnalité. L’étranger, c’était compliqué, l’outre-mer français plus facile ». Après avoir fait le tour de diverses destinations, « où je ne trouvais pas vraiment d’attrait », il découvre La Réunion "With a real potential and tourism in the making". He finds a field in 1992 and three years later by finally settling on the hills above the town of Saint Leu. He built the Iloha, three star hotel with 44 rooms, so that opens in 1996, it expanded three years later and for which he is already preparing a new expansion and complete renovation next year. But there is primarily an architect, not hotel. A project completed soon, he left already on another course and it oversees, leaving the daily management of a director whose job it is. Having identified land above the beach of Grande Anse in the south of the island, he is already imagining what will be the Palm, a luxury hotel with international standards as operates long Mauritius but is here default. A challenge in itself that is double that of the establishment: if the north west of the island is the area where tourism is concentrated with a number of hotels near the lagoon, south, yet the most authentic Reunion is a blank page despite its many advantages including an airport. Leaf Palm white born finally opens its doors in 2007, seven years after he found the place of its location. "It was a real destination to open in completely. It was not fair to ask a hotel but to find a soul to it and its environment. For this kind of project requires a minimum of three or four hectares and the biggest challenge is finding the necessary land and then move all the administrative steps and policies, public inquiries, etc.. And then my job as an architect serves me well as you master these phases. During these seven years, the site itself only lasted a year and a half ... "Without market research, since there was nothing in this area, just with a conviction deep in the body and approach, the project seems completely insane at the time, especially as the construction proceeds in full outbreak of chikungunya, which has literally rolled tourism in the island. "We're on the principle of the resort, an autonomous entity that does not have a supply of the town as a destination previously identified, but rather in the opposite direction of a structure that creates the destination. That's exciting. " After three years of the Palm, the bet is successful a triumph and the arrival of blue directly into the southern island, home, is the expression of as much as it has been accompanied by a fierce local trade war. "In fact, when Raymond Domenech and the staff have toured the facilities of the island before deciding if they would come in the Indian Ocean to complete their preparation, the coach who immediately made our choice of hotel, attracted by the quality thereof and the environment 'says he. If the invoice amount is a real secret defense Jam Michel concedes: "I have a particular price Of course since I privatize the entire hotel, but they pay. Some were willing to stay completely free for them. We was out of question. We have not changed since we corresponded to very precise specifications of the team. " We will not know more about the details of your stay. With many projects already in mind, a new hotel in the south as another a priori too crazy, the volcano in the heart of the park. Also developing the product range of beauty treatments and wellness focus avec son épouse, en collaboration avec des parfumeurs métropolitains, local et suisse. Parcourant le monde avec elle pour dénicher le mobilier unique pour ses hôtels, il revient régulièrement dans sa Ville rose qu’il a quittée il y a quinze ans. Le tourisme ici ? « Lorsque je vois tous les six mois des articles sur la rue Alsace Lorraine dans La Dépêche, j’ai l’impression que Toulouse ne bouge pas trop par rapport à Bordeaux où Montpellier » consent-il. Il n’en dira pas plus, il aime trop cette ville, sa ville, pour la dénigrer.
Hervé Chossat
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