Shortly after announcing the birth of Club Alcione, Alessia Berlusconi materialized the first investment in Forte dei Marmi by this “entrepreneurial community” that emerged around her beach club, which won the Audit People Award in the first edition of Guide to Italy’s Best Beach Clubs (2024) as Italy’s most sustainable beach resort.

The club deal officially formalized the acquisition of Caffè Morin, a historic Forte dei Marmi establishment that represents a sort of “inner sanctum,” still considered to hold significant untapped potential. Renovation work by the new ownership is expected to begin in early October. The project envisions a multi-purpose venue featuring a restaurant, bar with pastry shop, and space for aperitivo, dinner, and after-dinner, oriented toward an adult audience. The new Morin will undoubtedly be one of the two most important developments in Versilia by 2027. The other, naturally, will be the reopening of La Capannina di Franceschi, acquired by Giorgio Armani just weeks before his passing.

The Morin operation represents the first concrete implementation of the Club’s objectives, which intends to proceed unhurriedly and thoughtfully, selecting initiatives capable of offering high added value and solid development prospects. Club Alcione was built around a community of clients, entrepreneurs, professionals, and friends who have gathered around the resort over the years. The idea, as Alessia Berlusconi, sole administrator of the company, recounts, was born during winter, almost by chance, from a conversation by a fireplace in Milan. “Why don’t you bring a partner on board to help you create a catalyst for new opportunities?” her husband suggested. This sparked a reflection that led to a different conclusion: not just one partner, but a small entrepreneurial community.

Thus, 25% of the share capital was opened to 33 small shareholders, with stakes from 0.75% upward. Not merely investors, but individuals called to participate in the life of the company, with benefits, profit distribution, and especially priority access to new opportunities identified by the group. The model indeed aims to transcend the boundaries of the beach resort and tap into operations in the hospitality, restaurant, real estate, and energy sectors, which Berlusconi now indicates as the two main strategic pillars alongside hospitality.

“Why must we always work only with large funds?” is the question at the heart of the project. The Club Deal proposes a different path, in which each partner can contribute different resources, from 100,000 euros up to larger sums, depending on the operation. A form of distributed participation that, in the promoter’s intention, enables the creation of a business community bound by a common interest in the territory and capable of generating new opportunities.

After acquiring Caffè Morin, Berlusconi is also looking with interest at Milan and cites as an example the model of entrepreneurs capable of concentrating multiple diverse activities in the same territory, creating veritable destinations. The goal is to replicate this logic through targeted operations, leveraging the relationships and expertise of the community revolving around Alcione.

The model could also become replicable in other beach resorts. For Berlusconi, involving clients, friends, and sympathizers means making them more participatory, multiplying opportunities, and at the same time, introducing an additional stimulus to improve. “Having someone to answer to at year’s end never hurts,” she observes, because it helps maintain focus on quality and continuous improvement.

The Club is part of a growth trajectory for Alcione that in recent years has focused on quality, services, and sustainability. The resort has achieved five certifications, three linked to environmental management and two to human resources, with particular attention to diversity, inclusion, and gender equality. Future plans include further investments in services, including activities such as yoga, aqua gym, swimming lessons, and a baby club. On the innovation front, the introduction of a virtual assistant to support reception and request management is also being studied, without sacrificing human interaction.

In this journey, therefore, the beach remains the starting point but no longer the destination. Club Alcione endeavors to transform a relationship built over the years between business and territory into a genuine investment community. An experiment born in Forte dei Marmi that, should the model deliver expected results, could find application elsewhere, demonstrating how a beach resort can become not only a vacation destination but also a laboratory for new entrepreneurial initiatives.