Roman (or Parisian?) Holiday

Friday 20 June 2008

Eighty-two million visitors flocked to France last year, cementing its supremacy as the world's top tourist destination. But far from resting on its laurels, France is launching an aggressive campaign to lure new travelers - and keep the old ones.

Eighty-two million tourists can't be wrong. That's how many visitors flocked to France last year, cementing its supremacy as the world's top tourist destination.

 

But far from resting on its laurels, France's tourism industry is launching an aggressive campaign to keep those tourists coming - and to lure new ones from the growing ranks of Indian, Brazilian, Chinese and Russian globe-trotters.

 

Anyone who’s ever braved the crush of camera-wielding gawkers at the Eiffel Tower on almost any given day, might find it hard to believe that France has a “tourist” problem.

 

And technically speaking, it doesn't: France still attracts the most holidaymakers on the planet, strides ahead of its main European rivals, Italy and Spain, and its visitor numbers continue to grow by the year.

 

But this obscures a more worrying trend for French tourism officials. While numbers of visitors rise, France’s share of the global tourism market, in percentage terms, has been on the decline (down from 11.9% in 1990, to just over 9% this year).

 

At the same time, the country’s revenues from tourism represent only 6.6% - or about 39 billion euros - of the total global market. This puts it in third place, behind number-two Spain and the world champion, the United States.

 

Scrappy tourism “upstarts” - destinations such as Morocco, Dubai and Croatia - are also posing a challenge to France’s historic dominance, while countries like China are playing catch-up and could soon overtake France.

 

On the plus side, according to Le Figaro newspaper, of the 50% of French who take holidays, only a fifth leave France.

 

French officials see several weak links in the tourism chain. One has to do with image: France spends less than some big rivals marketing itself to outsiders (only 77 million euros spent on tourist campaigns last year, versus 130 million for Spain).

 

Then there's the hospitality issue. According to a recent survey, only 20% of tourists feel they get a warm welcome in France, versus 30% who feel that way in Italy, and 33% in Spain. To rub salt into the wound, Italy also garners higher ratings than France on the latter’s traditional turf: gastronomy.

 

The country’s state secretary for tourism, Henri Novelli, is proposing a laundry list of specific measures to maximize tourist potential over the next decade and beyond.

 

The crux of the strategy lies in burnishing the country’s image abroad by promoting a “France brand”.

 

Novelli also wants to create a new category of 5-star luxury hotels and eliminate the zero-star rating for the lowest-end lodgings.

 

To make the country more accessible to travelers, we are likely to see more low-cost flights to and from France in the future. Visitors from emerging countries such as India, China, Brazil and Mexico will also be able to obtain visas in a shorter time.

 

Novelli says tourists from these up-and-coming travel markets could help create up to 600,000 new jobs for France's tourist industry, which already employs some 2 million people and contributes over 6% of the country’s national output. He believes these future visitors could help spur a one-point spike in GDP.

 

Those queues at the Eiffel Tower might be a lot longer in the near future.