Tourism Breaking News
Ensuring that France would still be the top of the mind destination, Atout France kicks off the year with a tailor made e-learning programme designed for the travel trade in the Middle East, called “France Connaisseur.” This platform consists of 19 modules which provide content relevant to the travel trade to better understand the destination, think out of the box and design packages and itineraries combined with areas in France that are hitherto unknown.
Karim Mekachera – Director Middle East and Turkey – Atout France addressing the travel trade shared that it was important to keep the travel trade updated after the challenging years, hence they conducted various research and compiled a platform tailor made for the region. Mekachera reiterated about the destination France plan for 2030. “The e-learning platform is brand new and today we launched it for the first time in the region. The whole world went through a crisis, but the resilience is there so now we have to update the knowledge of the travel trade professionals on the knowledge about the destination, this is the first reason, secondly, we want to go beyond the traditional destinations and we have to help the travel trade to think outside the box, for this we need to give them the right tools and the right content to design some new itineraries, new packages for their clientele. I think of course, Paris is Paris, the gateway to France, the French Alps for Ski and the French Riviera for the summer season but there are also many other destinations to discover in the country and that is the aim of this e-learning programme.”
Zamira Ismatova – Travel Trade Manager Middle East Regional Office – Atout France, “The project of e-learning, France Connaisseur consists of 19 modules which can be completed at the time and space that best suites the travel trade. We have tailor made this platform to suit the clients of the Middle Eastern region, hence only relevant criteria to this market is shared. We wanted our travel trade partners to discover new regions in France apart from the three most popular regions by the travellers in the Middle East. The platform has new openings of accommodation, attractions, destinations such as Brittany, gastronomy, etc. At the end of completion of the modules there will be a test, which will be completed with a certificate as a French Connoisseur valid for a period of two years. Each module takes about 15 minutes and can be completed soon, in case there are any errors they can revisit and check before submission, so it’s a very user friendly platform.”
