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The service is due to go live in July. It will allow travel agents to book with the French tour operator electronically for the first time.

Club Med's holidays are not featured on the established travel industry electronic booking system viewdata.

The site will initially be rolled out to 100 agents in the UK, with plans to reach 300 by the end of the year. It will target the same agents that receive Club Med Expert, the company's travel agent training programme.

Agents will receive commission on bookings made via the site.

"Viewdata is generally considered to be outdated and outmoded,

said Chris Woodbridge-Cox, managing director of Club Med UK.

"We needed to get to the stage where agents can book our holidays online. There are 7,500 agents in the UK, 4,000 of which we would not work with, and another big chunk that is outside the geographical area over which we can offer this service, so 300 is a reasonable target for us."

He added: "We don't own our travel agents so we have to work with independent agents and encourage the same level of customer retention that we pride ourselves on."

He claims that 83 per cent of Club Med's customers book another holiday with the company within three years of their first booking.

Club Med added e-commerce to its UK consumer site (www.clubmed.co.uk) in March 2001, before rolling it out across its other European sites. Prior to this, the company had only offered e-commerce in the US.

According to Woodbridge-Cox, the UK's e-commerce operation has performed better than most other countries. He claimed that in busy periods and during online promotions with partners such as Expedia.co.uk, up to 40 per cent of Club Med's direct sales come through the web site, with the remainder coming through its call centre.