Laurent Pinon, Vice-President, Hervé Rocle, Founding President, and Lylia Soukehal, Bachelor IDRAC internship - DR : French DMC Association
TourMaG.com - How was the French DMC association born?
Hervé Rocle: I started building it two years ago, after founding my own incoming agency, Lyonpicurien by DMCLYON. I was already familiar with this activity for having worked with DMCs when I directed the agency Vacances Loisirs Voyages.
And I noticed that the profession was not supported, nor represented in the world of tourism.
Thus, with Laurent Pinon, the Director of Excelys Tours - the incoming department of Bleu Voyages - and Vice-President of French DMC Association, we registered the statutes and the association was created on June 1st, 2016.
TourMaG.com - What are your objectives?
Hervé Rocle: We want to gather all the incoming tourism players of the French regions and provide them with international visibility and representativeness toward French and European institutions.
But we do not want a direction at the national level, because we do not have the adequate qualifications to understand the inner workings of each region.
Also, we are expecting to create regional offices in each of the 12 metropolitan regions as well as in Corsica and in the DOM-TOMs in order to develop representativeness and national dynamism.
We are materializing contacts especially in Île-de-France and in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur.
Between now and 2016, we are hoping to have an office or club in each of the targeted regions. By using the group’s name, we hope to create a collaborative network capable of promoting and marketing France, through the brand image of Atout France.
Hervé Rocle: I started building it two years ago, after founding my own incoming agency, Lyonpicurien by DMCLYON. I was already familiar with this activity for having worked with DMCs when I directed the agency Vacances Loisirs Voyages.
And I noticed that the profession was not supported, nor represented in the world of tourism.
Thus, with Laurent Pinon, the Director of Excelys Tours - the incoming department of Bleu Voyages - and Vice-President of French DMC Association, we registered the statutes and the association was created on June 1st, 2016.
TourMaG.com - What are your objectives?
Hervé Rocle: We want to gather all the incoming tourism players of the French regions and provide them with international visibility and representativeness toward French and European institutions.
But we do not want a direction at the national level, because we do not have the adequate qualifications to understand the inner workings of each region.
Also, we are expecting to create regional offices in each of the 12 metropolitan regions as well as in Corsica and in the DOM-TOMs in order to develop representativeness and national dynamism.
We are materializing contacts especially in Île-de-France and in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur.
Between now and 2016, we are hoping to have an office or club in each of the targeted regions. By using the group’s name, we hope to create a collaborative network capable of promoting and marketing France, through the brand image of Atout France.
TourMaG.com - Meaning?
Hervé Rocle: Atout France has the means to ensure the promotion of the country, but its incoming structure is very obscure.
The organization works closely with Tourism Offices that become the competitors of incoming agency. Whereas, if we structured DMCs we could be working hand in hand with Tourism Offices.
The objective being to attract as many visitors as possible to France and to spread them throughout the regions in order to have them stay for longer.
TourMaG.com - What are your future projects?
Hervé Rocle: We are going to communicate via the press, our website and our Facebook page to recruit members from France’s different regions.
We wish to offer them the visibility they are lacking on the web, by highlighting their particularities (bike-tourism, wine-tourism, etc.) and their niche activities.
The website’s content, that for now serves as a window into the organization, will be defined at the end of the year with the new collaborators.
Hervé Rocle: Atout France has the means to ensure the promotion of the country, but its incoming structure is very obscure.
The organization works closely with Tourism Offices that become the competitors of incoming agency. Whereas, if we structured DMCs we could be working hand in hand with Tourism Offices.
The objective being to attract as many visitors as possible to France and to spread them throughout the regions in order to have them stay for longer.
TourMaG.com - What are your future projects?
Hervé Rocle: We are going to communicate via the press, our website and our Facebook page to recruit members from France’s different regions.
We wish to offer them the visibility they are lacking on the web, by highlighting their particularities (bike-tourism, wine-tourism, etc.) and their niche activities.
The website’s content, that for now serves as a window into the organization, will be defined at the end of the year with the new collaborators.
FRENCH DMC ASSOCIATION
Contact : Hervé ROCLE : 06 09 23 68 10
Website: www.french-dmc-association.com
Page Facebook
Contact : Hervé ROCLE : 06 09 23 68 10
Website: www.french-dmc-association.com
Page Facebook
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