French Riviera tourism goes high tech

By Ken Smith | Editor, SmartTravelNews.com

CANNES -- The French Riviera has a long and well deserved history as a favorite tourist destination. Less well known is that this area of southern France is also a high tech center. From a modest start 30 years ago, technology companies on the Riviera have grown to an annual turnover of four billion euros, equal to the revenue from tourism.

But, rather than competing for government support and new investments, French Riviera tourism and technology are working together with a business plan that growth in one area will help the other. Because the two business sectors are working so closely together, new technological applications to promote tourism are among the world's most advanced.

Jean-Claude Louis, the harbor master at Port Camille Rayon, near Cannes, France, connects his laptop computer to the Internet using a Wi-Fi wireless network.

"The French Riviera is truly a working laboratory for applications of new technology in the tourism industry," said Laurent Garcia, director of Tourism@ 2003, a conference on tourism and technology to be held in Cannes, December 11-12, 2003. "To our knowledge, there is no other place in the world where the leaders of tourism and technology are working so closely together."

This year's Tourism@ conference, the fourth such annual event, will have an expected 1,000 participants, mostly from France, but also from other European countries, North America and Asia. French will be the primary language for the conference, but there will simultaneous interpreters for English in the plenary sessions and one-third of the specialized tracks.

"As one example of how new technologies are being used by the tourism industry on the French Riviera, look at the great number of Wi-Fi networks already installed and working from Cannes to Menton," Garcia said. "These wireless local area networks provide easy access to the Internet at all major hotels, the airport, the yacht harbors, and the convention centers. We believe that the Riviera has the largest and best wireless connectivity infrastructure of any tourist destination."

Another example of how technology is being used on the French Riviera is found at Port Camille Rayon, where visiting yachts can be connected to the Internet within minutes of arrival, using the port's Wi-Fi wireless network. The port is one of nearly 100 new Wi-Fi hotspots for visitors to the French Riviera at yacht harbors, the Nice Airport, hotels, convention centers and other points of activity for tourists, business people and convention delegates.

Tourism@ 2003 is produced by the French Riviera Chamber of Commerce and the Telecom Valley Association, an organization of 70 high tech companies. Major sponsors of this year's conference include Amadeus, France Telecom, IBM, COFRAMI, LSO International, Comité Régional du Tourisme Riviera Côte d'Azur, and Côte d'Azur Developpement (joined by the SEMEC, managing the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, the host city).

"We have designed this year's conference as the essential meeting place for leaders in both tourism and technology," Garcia said. "In our general sessions and workshops, we will discuss and answer how to apply technology, how to measure its success, and what particular strategies work best for travel agencies, hotels, airlines, tour operators, tourism offices, and other sectors that are critical to the continuing success of our industry."

Topics at Tourism@ 2003 include: mobile payment systems, the business case for hotel-based Wi-Fi, new mobile services for tourism, best practices for online travel distribution, secure online and wireless financial transactions, digital-media communication and its advantages for the tourism industry, voice-activated content de livery, the latest developments in dynamic packaging process, and forecasts of what "the next big thing" will be in tourism and technology.

To show how technology has developed on the French Riviera, Garcia points to nearby Sophia-Antipolis, the largest such research center in Europe, and within a 15-minute drive of Cannes. Located at Sophia-Antipolis is a major campus of INRIA (National Institute for Research in Automation and Informatics), the leading French information technology and engineering school that is considered equivalent to MIT's Media Lab. The research park is also the home of CERAM Graduate School of Management Technology, founded in 1963 and now regarded as "the European School of Management". CERAM offers a number of advanced technical degrees, including a Master of Science in Strategic Tourism Management.