Being a native french I can tell that France is a wonderful country to visit : Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, St Michel Mount, Nice ect… France has some incredible assets that attracts more and more tourists each year. In 2018, France has attracted 89,4 million of tourists (www.huffingtonpost.fr).
Louvre Museum, Paris
Even if teenagers prefer to book their trip through Internet with Booking.com, AirBNB, Skyscanner. Travel agency still has a huge market, in 2016, France count 4800 travel agencies totaling 12 billion dollars. The power of travel agency is their partnerships : when a customer books a trip with a travel agency, everything will be in the pack : hostels, trips. This is easier and less time-taking and perfectly suited for middle-age people because they feel safer to plan a whole trip with a travel agency they trust : 91% of 50+ years old french people use a travel agency
Older people rather use Thomas Cook, for example, as they can offer such a service. But it also means a more expensive trip. French people are aware that there are cheaper travel agency than Thomas Cook, they didn’t adapt to this market segment and that’s why they are losing money and ultimately go bankrupt.
Company like Auchan Voyages are doing a lot of competition to Thomas Cook because it is cheaper.
From my personal experience, when I travel with my friends, we always book our trip through the Internet (AirBNB, AirFrance ect..) but when it comes to travelling with family, even in France, my parents prefer to use a travel agency, because they don’t know how to book online but also they feel safer to book everything at once (and from a travel agency they trust) than to book separately online. I remember when we decided to go for a trip to the south of France, my parents went to a travel agency to book the trip. They prefer that an agency prepare the whole trip, rather than do it by themselves. The agency plan for us to go to Nîmes, Perpignan, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nice and Marseille with the hostels included. It ends up more expensive than if we plan by ourselves. But easiness and comfort have a price, and that’s why going through a travel agency to plan a trip is more expensive.
Vincent TIENG
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