He is making a remarkable comeback. The international fair Appointment in France, which promotes the French destination to foreign tourism professionals, has been taking place in Nantes since Tuesday and until Wednesday evening. On this occasion, a new campaign to promote France for European visitors, called #Explore France, has just been unveiled.
Launched from March 30, the operation, which will cost no less than 10 million euros, will be available on display media and European digital media, with the support of influencers and around thirty companies. partners (Air France, Accor, Tripadvisor, Brittany Ferries, El Corte Ingles, etc.). Objective: “to win back” foreign tourists, emphasizing the “fundamentals of the France destination”.
Gastronomy and culture as banners
“We focus on the French way of life, gastronomy, culture. This is what tourists, including Americans and Asians, mainly come for. These are fundamentals that we continue to highlight by modernizing them in connection with sustainable tourism and a quest for meaning. The diversity of our grandiose landscapes also attracts a lot of people”, explains Caroline Leboucher, director ofAsset FranceFrance’s tourism development agency.
The #Explore France campaign will be broadcast in ten countries (Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Austria and Sweden) considered “priority” given the volume of visitors they represent: no fewer than 42 million arrivals last year, or 89% of foreign visitors of all nationalities. It will mainly be aimed at families, couples without children, as well as young European “millenials” with whom France “suffered from an image deficit in recent years”, considers Atout France.
The return of foreigners, a “vital” issue
The world’s leading tourist country ahead of Spain and the United States, France has gone from 90 million international visitors in 2019 to around 47 million tourists in 2021. “The return of foreign visitors is a vital issue because, even if domestic tourism constitutes about two thirds of the activity in France, international tourism represented 90 million visitors and 57 billion in tourist receipts before the pandemic, explains Caroline Leboucher. It is obviously a significant shortfall that has been felt in our territories. For regions very popular with foreigners such as Ile-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes or the PACA region, this is huge. »
France’s main competitors in the leisure tourism segment are Spain, Italy and, to a lesser degree, Greece and Croatia. “These are close competitors, who share with us assets such as heritage, gastronomy, wine tourism, a diversified nature, estimates the director of Atout France. What will make the difference is the quality of the reception and all the innovations that we put in place, in particular our tourist offers in line with environmental concerns. »