TravelPulse One-on-One: Francoise Navarro, Visit Paris Region

The Paris Region, known in France as Paris Ile-de-France, includes all 20 arrondisements of the city. It has been the most visited tourist region in the world for quite some time. The success of Paris as a destination is so dominant, that the other provinces of France, arguably some of the most beautiful destinations in the whole world, need to struggle to pull tourists visiting France out of Paris.

While the top five visitor attractions in the city remain the old favorites: Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Montmartre and the Arc de Triomphe, tourism officials are working to elevate other aspects of the city as well.

Now the city finds itself in a situation where it must manage its success by creating a better flow, adding room inventory and developing new attractions to keep it fresh. TravelPulse caught up with Francoise Navarro, executive officer of Visit Paris Region, to see what was up in the City of Lights.

TravelPulse: How is Paris managing so many tourists?

Francoise Navarro: In Paris we have over 80 percent occupancy rates. That equates to about 220 days a year that you can’t get a hotel room because Paris is full. Paris has the second highest performance in congress travel after Vienna. Trade shows and M.I.C.E. travel in general has been so strong that we now have to add rooms. It’s not only these travelers; it’s also the huge growth from new overseas markets. Chinese visitors to Paris were up 52 percent in 2013. Over the next 10 years we have to add about 20,000 rooms.

TP: Is there crowding in the attractions?

FN: We have to be creative. Our objective is to get our visitors to go not just to the famous center of the city but to move around the region where there’s so much to see. We are promoting such things as Van Gogh's Tomb at Auvers-sur-Oise in the northwestern suburbs. Impressionist painters have been a major draw for Paris, now we are encouraging visitors to explore the Barbizon painters, which began in the Parisian village of Barbizon. These are just examples.

TP: How has the U.S. market performed?

FN: We got 2 million U.S. visitors to Paris in 2013, a growth of 15 percent. This year we expect the United States to be our top market. (Tourism to France overall was 83 million including 3.2 million Americans). The 70^th Anniversary of the liberation of Paris will be celebrated and the centenary of the Great War (WW1) is also being honored. Paris was liberated from Nazi occupation on Aug. 25 1944. This year we are running a new campaign, the “We are free. Merci.” The campaign is an expression of gratitude from Parisians to the U.S. for liberating the city 70 years ago.

TP: How does the campaign work?

FN: There’s a time to tell the ones you love that you love them. Like the U.S., modern France was created in the spirit of Liberty and that freedom allows us to criticize you from time to time and for you to criticize us. Our campaign features a multitude of Parisians photographed in front of Parisian icons like the Eiffel Tower saying to the U.S., “We are free. Merci.” We are asking our friends in America to take a selfie in front of an American icon and say, You’re welcome.” to enter the contest. The contest begins on April 28.

TP: Last year Paris tourism published a booklet for the citizens of Paris, entitled “Do You Speak Tourist?” The book became quite famous around the world. Did it help?

FN: The booklet was designed to help Parisians to overcome the cultural differences that foreign tourists bring with them to the city. It was designed as an aid to Parisians, but it became a world-wide campaign, it got more than 300 articles written about it around the world. We have heard the criticisms of Parisian rudeness. Can our taxi drivers be difficult? Sure. But our exit surveys show that 93 percent of the visitors leave Paris satisfied. We need to work on that 7 percent.