France, the country most visited by tourists in the world has been upset. France accounted for 11.9% of the international tourist arrivals in 1990 but its share fell to 9.1% in 2007. In terms of international tourism receipts, too, the country has ranked third since 2002 when Spain overtook it. This report covers efforts made by the big power in tourism amid increased global competition.

France is the world's number one in international tourist arrivals. In 2007, the number of people who visited the country was 81.9 million. The tourism industry ranks first in earning foreign currency among its domestic industries. The tourism sector accounts for 6.2% of its GDP, compared to the global average of 3.8%. The number of tourism industry workers is 196,000.*

In recent years, however, France faces challenges in tourism, an industry that is supposed to be its own forte. In Europe, having anticipated the effects on regional development, Spain and Italy have vigorously promoted the tourism industry by some measures including establishing tourist facilities which provide good service at reasonable prices and improving transportation networks. In addition to that, there are newly emerging destinations such as Morocco, Tunisia and Dubai. Although it is unclear whether such a competitive environment affects or not, France's share of international tourist arrivals started shrinking in 1990. Its balance of payment surplus in tourism peaked at 14.074 billion Euros in 2000 and then declined to 8.911 billion Euros in 2005. It made a turnaround to be 12.788 billion Euros in 2007, which still did not reach the peak.*

A 2007 survey compiled by IPSOS *shows that France falls far behind Italy and Spain in the quality of hospitality. Only 20% of international tourists who visited France were satisfied with the hospitality, compared to 33% of visitors to Italy and 30% of those to Spain. Furthermore, in terms of cuisine culture of which France is proud, Italy is now ahead of France. In the case of France, 42% of respondents expressed their content with the cuisine, while Italy won 51%.*
Herve Novelli, secretary of state in charge of tourism of France, pointed out that France now faces three challenges, namely, the deterioration in the quality of hospitality amid intensifying international competition, the imbalance in development among regions and the slowdown in development of new tourism products.* What direction is France's tourism administration taking while there are signs of a plateau in its promotional activities and the tourism related infrastructure improvement? In June, 2008, the French government announced a new policy titled," Destination France 2020". The policy aims at sustaining the importance of tourism sector and creating new employment, through promoting sustainable tourism and harmonious development across the country.

In respect of sustainable tourism, they aim to develop new types of tourism which contribute to improvement in the nation's standard of living. To be specific, the government is to implement "fair tourism", which promotes tours so that local products can be consumed in production area based on fair trade principle. "Solidarity tourism" encourages local organizations to participate in the tourism sector so that the local public can appropriately enjoy economic benefits that the industry generates. "Social tourism" provides access to travel for people from all walks of life including young adults, pensioners, low-income earners and people with special needs.

With the respect to harmonious development throughout the nation, they intend to strongly attract budget airlines. One of the problems France has is imbalance in development among tourist sites. For example, Ile-de-France, which includes Paris, accounts for 33.9% of the number of bed-nights for foreign visitors, compared with 10.8% of Province Alpes Cote d'Azur. That means Ile-de-France leaves others far behind.*

Over the last decade, however, the international tourist arrival share of local airports has increased by 42% since Ryanair, Irish budget airline, embarked on business in 1997, said L'union des aeroports francais, UAF. It is common knowledge that low-cost carriers have a great influence on tourism. Although budget airlines use only 30 airports out of a total of 150, their service brings great benefits to local economies. Amazingly low airfares attract tourists to regions which used to be low in priority as destination. In addition to that, visitors tend to spend money in areas which are not traditional sightseeing sites because of cheap prices including amount for hotel accommodations. The tourism industry creates employment in regions with high unemployment rate. In that sense, attracting low-cost carriers is a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone solution. The central government cooperates with local governments to take some measures to attract LCCs such as deregulation, improvement in legal environment and subsidy system.

France has taken conventional measures such as enhancing public relations activities and improving tourist facilities. On top of that, taking into consideration the fact that the tourism industry is closely linked with communities, the French government has launched a series of policies which adopt the concept of aid to the socially vulnerable and the new industrial trend. What we have to learn may be such flexibility.

Reference:
* IPSOS France: French major research firm with solid accomplishments in various surveys including consumer attitudes research.
*Ministère de l'économie de l'indutrie et de l'emploi., Destination France 2020, 2008.
*La direction du tourisme., Chiffres clés du tourisme, 2008.
*Taxiclic.com., L'actualité, 26 Juin.2008
http://www.taxiclic.com/actualites
*Direction Régionale de l'Industrie, de la Recherche et de l'Environement., Statistiques industrielles, 2007.
*Le Monde., 18. Juillet 2007.
*Ibid., 2. Décembre 2008.