The 2009 edition of the Innovation&Tourism Forum will take place on November 23rd and 24th, 2009 in St Etienne’s conference hall.

In association with Rhônes-Alpes, this forum gathers more than 500 tourism professionals and other participants around interventions and workshops on ecotourism, sustainable development, new discoveries, new sales promotion and innovative projects since 2007.

Domains which are rewarded every year by a jury composed of 12 members involved in the tourism, the innovation and the culture sectors.

Program and entry form will be available online starting in June.

French-speaking magazine about sustainable development launched 5 years ago, Terra Eco is now available at your newsstand. Indeed, while it spread only with paper or electronics subscriptions, Terra Eco is in newsstand everywhere in France since the beginning of March.

This monthly Independent newspaper has a team of 30 journalists working. Of course it is printed on binded and recycled paper. Its mission is to put back the Human and the Environment in the middle of the economy, this magazine doesn’t want reform but inform.

Indeed, punchy, powerful even provoking, it allows readers to catch the stakes of the sustainable development in several domains such as social, economy, tourism, globalization and global warming.

Throuout its 84 recycled pages, environmental consciousness strengthen without guilt. To make your own opinion, you can find the last number on sale in kiosk or download it on Terra Eco.

for the 40th anniversary of exploration, the trekking agency, Hommes & Montagnes launched a new way of travelling in France : Randopays.

It’s not only a question of preserving in the world and its most beautiful landscapes, but also becoming aware of bad effects caused by the industrial development in the mountain areas.

This new type of hike is based on the one hand on a Tour guide from the area and on the other hand, on the territory in the several landscapes and historic places. These two elements found the philosophy of Hommes & Montagnes and Randopays : ethics, environmental protection and sharing.

This new mode of tourism allows to discover mountain in France while contributing to the sustainable development.

European and National flags

Since 1973, the European Commission has been monitoring the public opinion in the Member States.

This Eurobarometer survey was requested by the General Enterprise and Industry Directorate to collect citizens ‟views, 2007 and 2008 holidays and travel details as well as their vacation plans for 2009.

The fieldwork was conducted on February, 2009. More than 26,000 selected citizens 15 or older were interviewed in the 27 EU countries.

Four in ten Europeans travelled in 2008 and have holiday plans for 2009 . 67% of EU citizens made a trip where they spent at least one night away from home; 58% took a vacation .

The most popular holiday destinations of the EU holiday makers in 2008 were Spain, Italy, France and Greece and these countries dominate the current plans for 2009.

However, 17% of French travelled last year but are still hesitating about a holiday in 2009. The main reason for not taking a vacation is due to a lack of funds and most EU citizens were still hesitating about their vacation plans in 2009 in response to this public opinion.

European travellers would first give up winter holidays (42%) if their finances were not sufficient to meet their total holiday plans. Over 23% said they would rather save money by travelling off season, and 20% said they would consider vacationing closer to their home.

Today, there are over 45 000 certified Bed&Breakfast in France.

To discover address of the best French and European regions, the association « Passion Chambre d’Hôtes » give its first - international- congress of Bed&Breakfast and the authentic tourism in Paris, on March 28th and 29^th,2009.

This weekend, the opportunity will be given to the tourism pros and to the public to sample local products, to meet associations and B&B professionals, to plan escapades in different regions or even to participate in lot of workshops such as : weekend ideas, farm destinations, the new tendencies, a walk in the Quartier du Marais, etc.

The congress will espand on over 330 m2 and many exhibitors will be present.

According to its barometer Hotel Price Index ( HPI ), the booking site Hotels.com notes a 12 % decrease of the Hotel prices in 2008 compared in 2007.

With frequentations slowing down noticed on the Business segment, the cut prices reach big cities as New Delhi (-38%), London (-24%), Moscow et New York (-16%). On the European level, the average hotel price decline is heavy in several countries, but France’s is only 3 %.

Some French tourist destinations however register variations in their Hotel rates as Avignon (14 %), and Marseille (12 %), Montpelier (11 %) and Deauville (10 %).

With this decrease, French people keep traveling as they adapting their comsommation attitudes. In particular, 65 % of the French people bargain and compare, including on the hotel rooms and restaurants bill.

However, the weekend formula is more and more appreciated by French people: Hotels.com notes a 27 % increase on the one-night-stay searches between January, 2008 and January, 2009.

« Pluto 2 » is the new BtoB platform launched by Disneyland Resort Paris. The goal for this park is to deversify its distribution network and create the European online shop allowing Paris’ travel agencies, tourist information office and others professionals to book and print tickets of their journey at Disneyland’s Resort Paris.

Pluto 2 will be gradually available on June 2009.

Universe 1&2

ECO-LABYRINTHE is a huge spherical structure of 2500 m2, hosting four different and supplementary worlds.

It is an official event, set up from March 31st till April 21st, 2009, on the Champ de Mars in Paris, for the national week of green development. This edutainment activity is unique in France.

It is supported by the Ministère de l’écologie, de l’énergie, du développement durable et de l’aménagement du territoire as well as a dozen French firms aware of stakes representing green development.

Easyvoyage, compare travel guide made its own opinion poll in association with Médiamétrie and Eventiz based on the e-tourism segment.

Among 149 websites have been rated by 7000 Internet users and organized in several categories :

Tour Operator, Online Protagonists, Hotels Booking system, Suppliers, Cruises company, Carriers, Chain hotels, Low cost and The Reginonal Comitee of Tourism.

The average of these sites is 64/100.

With 66/100 for tourist information offices and 65/100for the regional committees, the non trade sites obtain the best marks contrary to airline companies (66/100) and low-cost carriers (59/100).

The criteria in this study are qualitative. Indeed, Internet users evaluated the sites in regard to the memorization, the understanding of the offers, the speed of display, the value for money but also on sites graphically successful and ergonomic.

According to the results, Internet users are quite satisfied.

Further to this poll, Easyvoyage decided to reward sites that got the best marks by attributing them a Travel Gold Awards.

The winners 2009 are :

#1 Tour operator : Kuoni

#1 Online Protagonists : Expedia

#1 Hotel booking sytstem : Booking.com

#1 Cruises : Croisieurope

#1 Carriers : Ada

#1 Chain Hotels : Best Western

#1 Suppliers: thomas cook

#1 Airlines company : KLM

#1 Low cost : EasyJet

#1 Regional Comittee of tourism : Guadeloupe

Indeed, this garden is considered as a zero chemical pesticidal space joining in a initiative of ecological management.

Garderners who have received a training on the new methods of ecological gardening, elaborate, for example, a water recycling system to limit water consumption. Ancient methods like the use of milk’s bricks to eradicate the proliferation of mushrooms are very used.

The sites where this management is exemplary are labellized by the independent organism ECOCERT. 63 gardens have “quality-label green space”.

Criteria of this label are based on :

• the installation of a management according to the place and for the use of space by the population.
• the thrifty management of water
• the quality of the soil;
• the presence of a diverse flora and fauna;
• the planting of vegetables requiering not much maintenance and without OGM;
• the “green waste” management
• the workmanship of energy consumption and introduction of renewable energy sources;

Paris is the 1st French city to subject all gardens to such steps. The environmental management plan of  green areas answers several objectives, among which:

• the reduction of nuisances (atmospheric, sound) and risks (pollution soil, water),
• the economy of non renewable natural resources,
• the development of fauna, flora

Environmentalpractices, already broadly spread , will progressively spread in the 500 green areas before 2014.