Francophone Markets and Best Practices
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Francophone Tourism Toolkit for RTOs: Francophone Markets and Best Practices Table of Contents A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE ONTARIO’S BEST PRACTICES IN THE DIRECTOR 2 FRANCOPHONE MARKETS 48 BEST PRACTICES: SERVICES 49 KEY FRANCOPHONE MARKETS FOR ONTARIO 3 French Services Awareness Campaign 49 Free French classes for staff 50 KEY FRANCOPHONE MARKET: QUEBEC 4 Bilingual front-line staff 50 Quebec travel to Ontario 4 Translating multimedia material 50 The Quebec market 4 Mobilizing a community to embrace Quebec and other tourism markets 5 French language services 50 Visitation rates by market 5 French Services Rating System 51 Demographic weight and visitation rates 6 Survey of the demographic profile of BEST PRACTICES: Direction Ontario’s clientele 6 PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT 52 Services in French 13 Bike Train Initiative 53 Québec Segmentation 16 Developing and marketing itineraries for Connaisseurs québécois 17 Francophone markets 54 Familles rustiques 20 Incorporating French culture into local events 55 Jeunes voyageurs 23 Making experiences more accessible to Francophone tourists 55 KEY FRANCOPHONE MARKET: FRANCOPHONE ONTARIO 26 BEST PRACTICES: MARKETING 57 Overview of the Francophone community French language marketing campaign in in Ontario 26 Quebec and Ontario 57 The French Language Services Act in Ontario 27 Adapting the product to answer the needs of the market 58 Francophone Ontario Segmentation 28 Long-standing professional translation Sportifs des banlieues 29 relationship 58 Camping et pique-nique 32 Making Francophone travellers feel at home 59 Retraités en détente 35 French URL and website targeting Comparing Francophone groups from Francophones 59 Quebec and Ontario 38 Promote Ontario in French while developing promotional tools that meet the needs of KEY FRANCOPHONE MARKET: FRANCE 40 the targeted Francophone markets 60 France market at a glance 40 Visitor characteristics 41 APPENDIX A Leisure travel characteristics 41 Visitors to Ontario in 2008 by origin and Travel motivators 42 by travel region 62 Travellers’ composition 42 APPENDIX B Travellers’ activities while abroad 42 Planning long trips 45 French Services Rating – National Evaluation Scale 63 S.W.O.T. analysis 46 Product strengths and weaknesses 47 SOURCES/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 64 CONCLUSION 66 ABOUT DIRECTION ONTARIO 66 A message from the Executive Director As the Province of Ontario works with the tourism industry to implement the new Regional Tourism Organizations (RTOs) across the province, Direction Ontario is pleased to support both the Ministry of Tourism and the Regional Tourism Organizations in the development of Francophone markets. As a first initiative in this effort, Direction Ontario has collected and organized extensive market intelligence on the three major Francophone markets. The information has been compiled in this comprehensive “Francophone Tourism Toolkit for RTOs: Francophone Markets and Best Practices”. This toolkit will provide each tourism region with knowledge and information to guide their initiatives in relation to the three major Francophone markets: Quebec, Francophone Ontario and France. The first part of the toolkit identifies the three major Francophone markets available to Ontario’s RTOs, its customers’ interests and preferences, and the tourism products that cater to those Francophone market segments. The second part of the toolkit identifies opportunities within the Francophone markets and highlights a number of Ontario’s best practices which have been developed and successfully used in these markets. It is our hope that this toolkit will help you better understand the potential of these markets and support you in marketing your region to these markets. Direction Ontario believes that we can continue to assist you in your efforts to attract these markets. We will be following up with each RTO to customize our knowledge sharing and propose other support activities that we can pursue together in order to help position you in these markets. You will certainly want to share key elements of this toolkit with your tourism operators and relevant product development and marketing committees. Additional copies of the Francophone Tourism Toolkit for RTOs are available in PDF version. I look forward to the opportunity to meet with you to pursue common initiatives and to build a strong partnership with you and your RTO. Yours truly, Louise Lacroix Executive Director Direction Ontario 2 KEY FRANCOPHONE MARKETS FOR ONTARIO Who are the Francophone markets? This document will enhance each RTO’s ability to better understand and serve Francophone visitors. These visitors are important to Ontario’s tourism industry; as such, we need to ensure we are providing appropriate quality services and products that appeal to this market. This document will identify the Francophone markets available to Ontario’s RTOs, an overview of those markets’ consumer interests and examples of tourism products that cater to those markets. “Ontario should market its destinations and experiences by strengthening our appeal to French-speaking markets…”* In order to create part one of this toolkit, Direction Ontario has referenced some of its earlier market studies and reports. Every two years, Direction Ontario conducts a survey among the Francophone clientele that uses its services to plan their trip to Ontario. Direction Ontario’s latest market studies include Quebec travel to Ontario in 2008 and Quebec travel to Northern Ontario in 2009. In addition, we will also reference the most recent market studies undertaken by the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation, the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the Canadian Tourism Commission and the Tourism Network Intelligence. Based on the findings and our analysis, Direction Ontario has identified three key Francophone markets for tourism in Ontario: 1. Quebec 2. Francophone Ontario 3. France The second part of the toolkit highlights a number of Ontario’s best practices which have been developed and successfully implemented in Francophone markets. We have grouped our examples in three separate categories, though in many cases the initiatives could easily apply to more than one category. Categories include: Services, Product Development and Marketing. * Greg Sorbara, Ontario Tourism Competitiveness Study. 3 NO. 1 KEY FRANCOPHONE MARKET: QUEBEC Quebec Travel to Ontario For the first analysis of the Quebec market, we will refer to the Market Study of Direction Ontario’s Tourism Clientele, Summer 2008 compiled by Boréale Fusion Consultation. The purpose of the market study was to present general data about Québécois tourism activities in comparison with other markets; to evaluate the current and potential importance of the Québécois market for Ontario’s tourism industry in comparison with other markets; to better understand the consumer habits of Québécois tourists who are interested in travelling to Ontario; and to evaluate the scope of Direction Ontario’s 2008 Francophone travel guide, L’Ontario en français. The first study analysed data from the Survey of the 2008 summer tourist season (hereafter called “survey”), which was conducted in January 2009 among 315 clients of Francophone tourism organization Direction Ontario. “Quebec, The survey data paint a picture of Direction Ontario’s clientele, specifically those tourists who contacted the according to organization by email or by phone to receive a copy of the tourism guide and who used it to travel to Ontario. The survey does not attempt to portray the entire profile of Québécois tourists who visit Ontario, as a large number of Competitiveness them visit Ontario without a tourism guide. This latter clientele tends to have shorter stays than Direction Study research, Ontario’s target clientele and, consequently, reflect different consumer habits. holds the largest The Quebec market, in figures untapped pool of potential With a population of over 7.5 million people, Quebec is the second most populated province after Ontario and home Canadian visitors to nearly a quarter of Canada’s population. Quebec sets itself apart by the linguistic makeup of its inhabitants: to Ontario.”* French is the mother tongue of four out of five Québécois, and one out of two Québécois can communicate only in French. In 2007, Québécois tourists visited Ontario 3.1 million times. According to the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, the purpose of the trips can be broken down as follows: 1 million for leisure, 1.49 million to visit relatives or friends, 465,000 for business and 175,000 for personal reasons. Stays of one or more nights accounted for 1.9 million of these trips. Québécois travellers spent $637 million in Ontario, broken down as follows: $456 million on overnight stays (one or more nights) and $180 million on same-day visits.1 The Quebec market Populationi Total Visits Total Overnight Total Expenses Expenses (000s) Visits (000s) (one or more nights) Total population 7,546,131 3,144 1,896 637,000ii 456,000ii French, mother tongue 5,920,995 2,503a 1,510a 507,225a 363,100 Knowledge of French 7,028,740 2,972a 1,792a 601,175a 430,354a Sources: i) Statistics Canada, “Quebec (province)” in 2006 Community Profiles, [www12.statcan.gc.ca] (consulted August 7, 2009); ii) Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Ontario’s Domestic Travel Markets, 2007. Notes: a) Estimate by crossing the total number of Québécois visits to Ontario in 2007 and the demographic weight. *Discovering Ontario: A report on the future of tourism. 1 Ontario’s Domestic Travel Markets, 2007, Ontario Ministry of Tourism. 4 Quebec Quebec is mainly a French-speaking market, but it would be a mistake to think that all Québécois visitors are Francophones or Francophiles. A portion of Quebec’s population does not speak French and would therefore not be influenced by French marketing campaigns, a point which deserves to be emphasized. Francophones account for 78.6% of Quebec’s population, allophones 12.6%, and pure Anglophones 7.8%. The vast majority of Québécois (93.1%) speak French.2 The table above presents an estimate of the tourist traffic in Ontario, based on the Québécois demographic. It is merely an estimate, since the Ontario Ministry of Tourism does not compile statistics on Québécois tourist traffic based on language.