Located in the heart of the Loire Valley, just 1 hour from Paris, Orléans Métropole is a destination with many assets, particularly in terms of history and culture. It’s also an invigorating destination on a human scale.
The mission of the Orléans Métropole Tourist Office is to promote the city’s heritage and tourism offering through a variety of initiatives, including digital communication.
How does Orléans appeal to French travelers?
Let’s meet Julie Egal, Assistant to the Director, in charge of promotion and marketing.
1 – Could you briefly introduce yourself and the mission of Orléans Métropole Tourist Office?
An Orléans resident since 2017, I’ve been in charge of tourism promotion and marketing for the Orléans Métropole destination since the end of 2018, withinOrléans Val de Loire Tourisme. We are a team of 17 people, divided between the leisure tourism division, and the Orléans Convention bureau.
The Tourist Office’s mission is to raise the profile of tourism in the Orleans metropolitan area, both in France and on foreign markets, particularly in neighboring countries, but also further afield (Asia, the United States, etc.). The destination’s many assets – heritage, natural, cultural and gastronomic – as well as its proximity to Paris, are still often overlooked by “citybreaker” tourists. That’s where our promotional activities come into their own, particularly in digital form. What’s more, we are constantly innovating and diversifying our offer with new products and services, thus helping to boost the region’s tourist appeal, in close collaboration with our network of local partners.
In addition to our mission to promote and market tourism, we attach particular importance to welcoming, listening to and advising our visitors. That’s why we recently moved into new premises on the Place du Martroi, right in the heart of the city center and in line with the train station. More modern, with a fully-fledged digital reception area and a large store, this new tourist office is truly up to the challenge of our tourism ambitions!
2 – Can you tell us about the Tourist Office’s latest innovations, including the website?
In mid-July, we launched a modernized version of our website. With a streamlined graphic style, we’ve focused on highly visual, inspirational content, and a fully responsive format. We’ve refined the way we search for activities and service providers, and optimized our online activity booking and ticketing functionalities. As the development of cycle tourism is one of our priorities, we have added a “cycling” entry to the main menu. As well as optimizing the website, we are of course also continuing to develop the engagement of our communities on social networks, notably Facebook and instagram.
Another new feature in June was the launch of a totally paperless CityPass. Our visitors can now book their pass online and receive a barcode directly in their smartphone wallet, giving them access to the various services included in the CityPass: museums, tours, mini-train and boat rides, floral park, etc.
We have also expanded our ticketing offer to include discounted castle passes, as well as museum and park passes.
3 – How is the summer season going for the destination? And how are you preparing for summer 2021?
It’s still too early to make an initial assessment of the summer of 2021, as projections for August remain uncertain. Our hotel partners are reminding us that, once again this year, bookings are being made at the last minute, the weather is fickle, and government measures linked to covid-19 sometimes seem to be confusing people. So we’ve approached the summer season with as much flexibility and agility as possible!
Nevertheless, the initial figures are encouraging. The month of July saw a sharp rise in visitor numbers at the tourist office (almost 50% more visitors), with a significant presence of Dutch, German and Belgian tourists. The must-see and unusual tours, the CityPass and the little train are always a great success. And our website has seen a real spike in traffic in recent weeks: +400% sessions the week it was launched! The hotel partners we contacted confirmed that July was a satisfactory month overall.
At the Tourist Office, part of the summer’s preparations was devoted to familiarizing ourselves with our new working environment, and getting to grips with our new digital reception tools (touch-screen terminals and tables, image wall…). We have also optimized our newsletters, developed new partnerships for digital communication (leboncoin, oui.sncf…), updated our documentation, expanded our souvenir store range, offered new tour themes, new packaged products… We have carried out specific promotional actions aimed at the cycling tourist target. Finally, we also took part in several virtual BtoB trade shows, notably in the French, English and Asian markets.
4 – You decided to call on Travel-Insight to support your social networks a few years ago, why?
Travel Insight is supporting us in implementing our digital strategy on social networks and our influencer campaigns, for the3rd year running.
In addition to their expertise and experience with various tourism players, we particularly value the outside eye they bring to our content proposals and positioning, as well as their creativity.
As best practices on social networks are constantly evolving, monitoring and benchmarking are also a major part of our support.
5 – You did a Blogtrip last year, and a2nd one is currently in preparation. Can you tell us about it?
After the success of our 2021 blogtrip (over 6 million views of the posts and stories created by the influencers!), this year we’ve opted for a concept that we hope will be even more “viral”, inspired by a famous game show. The casting, produced by Travel Insight, promises to be sparkling and dynamic, with some great encounters in store, and a program rich in experiences and emotions! Micro-adventure, gastronomy, heritage, relaxation, culture… all the ingredients are present to make our guests experience 48 unforgettable hours!
But shhh … I won’t say any more. See you on August 24 on our instagram account @orleanstourisme!
See this post on Instagram
6 – What message would you like to convey to French tourism professionals and travelers?
The health crisis we’re facing, and the uncertain tourism environment in which we’ve been operating since the start of this pandemic, are turning travelers’ behavior upside down, and thus encouraging us to question our achievements and operating methods.
I believe that this offers us, the tourism industry, real opportunities. We need to listen to our visitors’ expectations, and provide them with offers that match their desires for authenticity, escape, encounters, adventure and sustainability. We have to be adaptable, flexible, agile, and know how to reassure them.
We also need to support the tourism players who have been hardest hit, in particular by continuing to invest in developing the destination’s appeal.
7 – A final word?
The Festival de Loire, Europe’s largest gathering of river mariners, takes place this year from September 22 to 26 … and what if it were the occasion for a Loire citybreak in Orléans?
