The Ville Rose is a must-see stopover in the heart of southwest France.

Once the capital of the Visigoths, now the aeronautical and space capital, Toulouse invites travelers to discover its two thousand years of history and has plenty of surprises in store! To its economic and scientific achievements, the city that sees life in pink adds the beauty of its heritage, its cultural richness and effervescence, its gastronomic delights and its cheerful temperament.

This subtle cocktail of art de vivre and achievements makes Toulouse the ideal destination for the adventure of a weekend or a lifetime.

Today we meet Adrien Harmel, Deputy Director of the Toulouse Métropole Attractiveness Agency and head of the Tourist Office.

How can we leverage the assets of a metropolis to contribute to its influence?

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1 – Could you tell us a little about yourself and the mission of the Toulouse Métropole Attractiveness Agency?

I’m Adrien Harmel, Deputy Director of the Toulouse Métropole Attractiveness Agency and Head of the Tourist Office, which is responsible for welcoming tourists and promoting Toulouse and its metropolitan area as a leisure destination.

The mission of the Toulouse Métropole Attractiveness Agency is to attract wealth and job creators to the metropolis (visitors, conference event organizers, businesses, cinema) and brings together four different professions:

• Toulouse Métropole Tourist Office, to promote leisure tourism and welcome French and international visitors;
• The Toulouse Convention Bureau, to support professional events (incentives, congresses, etc.) and facilitate the process for organizers;
• Invest in Toulouse, the economic development agency, which aims to attract investors from specific sectors such as the aeronautics and space industries, as well as healthcare, industrial biology, digital artificial intelligence and green technologies;
• The Bureau des Tournages, to attract and facilitate film, television and advertising productions;

The Office du Tourisme, which joined the Agence d’Attractivité 6 years ago, now represents the largest part of the company’s workforce, welcoming over 300,000 visitors to the Donjon du Capitole every year. It is in charge of visitor reception, mediation and guided tours.

2 – What are Toulouse Métropole’s objectives?

Toulouse Métropole’s objective is to present the Ville Rose and its surrounding area as an attractive, sustainable destination, while consolidating the 23,000 jobs in the tourism sector based on a balanced development model that benefits residents and tourists alike.

We are focusing on 4 main areas:

• Rebalance activity between business and leisure tourism. Indeed, even today, we still see a higher occupancy rate on weekdays than at weekends or during school vacations – the objective being to reach and exceed a 60% occupancy rate at weekends. Over the past 7 or 8 years, however, there has been a rebalancing between the two types of tourism;
• Spread tourist flows throughout the year, based on 4-season tourism, thanks to a rich offering of activities and events;
• Refocus on European and French customers: 20% local, 50% from France and Spain, and 30% international;
• Distribute flows between the city center and the other tourist hubs around Toulouse, within 1 hour of each other, to create a logical destination with the other towns in the metropolitan area.

The idea is no longer to present Toulouse as a city-break destination, but rather as an extended destination for discovering both the Ville Rose and all its neighboring sites (notably Albi and the Pyrenean Piedmont), with the aim of extending the average length of stay (between 3 and 5 nights).

As for the Bureau des Tournages, which used to be very much geared towards managing and assisting producers with all the practical aspects of filming, it is now more focused on active prospecting. The aim is to attract more feature film producers to the VilleRose.

Toulouse also has a special feature for producers and directors, the Toulouse On Air scheme: all operators with unique aeronautical or space-related shooting locations have joined forces to create a group to facilitate the work of producers who want to shoot airplane scenes.

3 – What are the assets of the Ville Rose and its metropolis?

Toulouse has many tourist attractions. However, three aspects stand out in my opinion:

• The heritage and art of living à la toulousaine: universally recognized for its friendly atmosphere, Toulouse boasts a high level of friendliness and a strong identity (particularly in terms of gastronomy, with many local specialties);
• A young city (Toulouse is France’s^2nd-largest university town) with a lively cultural scene all year round: many music festivals are held here, as well as a variety of sporting events (Toulouse is certainly the capital of rugby, but not only!).
• Toulouse is unequivocally a land of pioneers and scientists, and many sites pay tribute to these discoveries, whether related to space and aeronautics, for example with the Cité de l’espace, Aeroscopia or Envol des Pionniers, or to more general sciences, such as the Quai des Savoirs.

4 – Do you have any future projects or flagship initiatives to share with us?

Major redevelopment projects are currently underway, notably to develop river-related activities and, more generally, water-related activities in Toulouse. We can cite 2 major plans:

• The Grand Parc Garonne, which is the backbone of our tourist appeal, as everything around the Garonne has been renovated to develop leisure activities. In 2 or 3 years’ time, the Île du Ramier, which will resemble a Toulouse Central Park, will be a completely revegetated area where the Garonne will be returned to Toulousans and visitors alike;
• Tourism enhancement of the Canal du Midi, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with the aim of keeping cars away from its banks to develop not only river-based activities, but also river-related ones.

Toulouse will be marked in 2024 by the return of shows by Compagnie La Machine, originally from Montaudran. This veritable urban opera will return for its second edition in autumn 2024, attracting over a million people.

We will also continue to develop and accentuate our collaboration with neighbouring destinations, to present Toulouse as a complete destination (urban, mountain, countryside), with turnkey transport solutions, to enable easy escape from the city and mesh the territory to make it a global destination.

5 – Why did you choose to work with Travel-Insight to manage your press relations?

We chose Travel-Insight to help us manage our press relations because their proposals and approach were interesting. What’s more, the agency has numerous references and a reputation in the tourism sector.

6 – A final word: what message would you like to convey to tourism professionals?

In Toulouse, we still welcome the development of tourism with goodwill and no mistrust. The city and its surroundings remain unspoilt, far from overtourism, and we look forward to welcoming visitors. We still have room for improvement in terms of leisure tourism, but we remain optimistic.

We are also delighted and honored to be hosting the Rendez-Vous en France event organized by Atout France on March 26 and 27. We look forward to seeing you there!