Welcome Speech by Anne-Laure Tuncer

Transcription

1 Welcome Speech by Anne-Laure Tuncer Dear members of the Atout France Advisory Board, Dear partners and colleagues, Chers amis, Bienvenue à New York! And welcome to this 10 th edition of French Affairs. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for taking the time out from your busy lives to attend this event. French Affairs is now an established major event, with the participation of key players of our industry. There are over 200 professionals participating this year, including 138 tour operators, 62 French suppliers, 20 industry related professionals that are members of the board or journalists, and, most of the Atout France staff who you will get to know if you don t know them already. I am particularly glad to welcome my colleagues from North and South America: Armelle Tardy-Joubert for Canada, Anne-Marie Fabre from Mexico and Jean-Philippe Perol from Brazil who organized the very first edition of French Affairs here in New York in Jean-Philippe will say a few words in a moment. We are very pleased to welcome for the fourth time our European colleagues from Belgium and The Upper Rhine Valley Association. The collaboration with border countries is important to us because the competition between continents is vigorous. But we also go way beyond our borders. We announced last year a new collaboration with the Israel Ministry of Tourism in order to host more people to both countries on one same journey. And this initiative is going very well. Travelers want new experiences and we are working very hard to make that possible.

2 The schedule of the weekend is intense and should be very productive. This morning we held market presentations for our exhibitors. This afternoon s welcome activity a game of Jeopardy was really challenging and fun. And to complete the experience, training sessions by the tourism boards of Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrenees and Rhone Alps followed by the trade shows, will take place tomorrow. The overall goal is to share our collective experiences thanks to the active participation of each and every one of us. Though we have organized this event, it is your input that will determine its success, relevance and benefit to all. In case you have heard, tourism is receiving a more focused interest from governments around the world. In a speech to all of France s ambassadors in Paris a few weeks ago, French president François Hollande said, and I quote: tourism must become a great national cause, which means we must improve the welcome at our airports, strengthen security, and raise the quality of our tourism infrastructure. France is already the world s #1 tourism destination and the immediate goal is to become Europe s first destination in terms of tourism revenue. This formal acknowledgment of tourism as a key industry and its impact on the economy, is very good news for us all. There is more good news. Demand for international travel remained strong throughout the first eight months of 2013, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. Between January and August, the number of international tourists worldwide grew by 5%, driven by strong results in Europe, Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East. In those first 8 months, Europe benefitted the most, with an estimated 20 million more arrivals in the region. Given that Europe is the world s largest travel destination with several mature destinations, a growth rate of 5% is very positive. For France, the increase was 2%, placing it ahead of the United States with a growth rate of 1% and of Germany whose figures have not increased.

3 You know that among our target segments, baby-boomers remain our leading clientele, but more than ever we are adjusting our marketing efforts to attract and suit the needs of millennial travelers. We will continue working on family travel to firmly establish France as a family friendly destination, to promote France as the best destination to celebrate milestone events, like wedding anniversaries, birthdays and of course honeymoons. We will also beef-up our efforts in the special interests such as spiritual travel and wine, cycling or cruise tourism have generated a strong response from professionals and consumers alike and we will continue to explore these markets. For the past two years, we talked about what we call Contrats Destinations, a service provided by Atout France which brings together professionals of a same destination or those interested in promoting a common theme, like for instance the Centennial of the First World War. The idea is not only the more the merrier but it is to pool together resources to invest in infrastructure and to increase promotional budgets. I would like to add that Atout France is not only an agency that promotes tourism to France. We are also a consulting firm, offering cities, counties and countries expertise in developing their tourism infrastructure and marketing plans. Let me give you a recent example. Atout France has just signed a 3 year agreement with the Haitian Ministry of Tourism to develop the tourism potential of Northern Haiti. This agreement features a positioning study which includes a detailed assessment of the area s assets and its competition. Based on that assessment Atout France will recommend targeted travel products and an appropriate marketing plan. What are we expecting for 2014?

4 Republicans and Democrats have been fighting vigorously, to say the least, in 2013 and are likely to continue to do so in There is definitely no love lost between the two. But hopefully it won t impact the economy too badly. Despite this phenomenon we are seeing an increase in the number of US travelers this year, an increase that has also been reported by travel industry professionals. This has encouraged our partners to invest more on the US market. So, this year again we will have more opportunities to work with you and keep growing the number of US travelers to France. Some of these opportunities will be driven by special themes or milestones that I have referred to. The major anniversaries coming up in 2014 are The centennial of the beginning of WWI, the 70 th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy, of Operation Dragoon, the landings which took place on August 15 in Provence and the the Liberation of Paris which took place 70 years ago on August 25, Normandy will again be the focus of international attention when it hosts next year the World Equestrian Games from August 24 to September 7. I know we say it year after year but your support is instrumental in driving US tourism to France. Thank you very much. Last but not least, thank you to Air France for its unconditional support. Not only with tickets and budgets, but because of its strong commitment to our destination! Claire Jacobs, Manager, Partner Relations and Development will come to the stage in a few moments I would also like to thank our sponsors, the tourism boards of Riviera-Cote d Azur, Antibes Juan les Pins, Cannes, Nice, Rhône-Alpes, Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrenees, Normandy and Domaine de Chantilly.

5 And again my thanks to Nathalie, Isabelle, Vanessa, Aryany, Juliette and Perrine and the entire team of Atout France. This event is a beautiful team building experience because each of our departments brought their own expertise to make this event a success. I wish you all an incredible outcome. Now Jean-Philippe Perol will say a few words on behalf of our CEO and Claire Jacobs will follow.