Strength in numbers. With this concept in mind, five Alpine destinations have got together in a bid to strengthen their brand names on the business tourism market and are participating for the first time under one banner at the Heavent trade show, organised between 20 and 22 November at Paris’ Longchamp racecourse. Alongside them will be RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme, who are supporting them in this venture.
The Heavent tradeshow is aimed at business tourism professionals and event management companies, and is the largest annual event of its kind. This is the seventh edition of the show, bringing together 500 exhibitors and around 16,000 visitors, which explains its importance in the business tourism sector.
At the end of 2006, a number of partners who were at Alpes Business Class met with Marc BĂ©chet, managing director of RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme, to tell him that we were really keen to do something together to promote all major towns and cities in the Alpsthat offering conference facilities, recalls Yann d’Ascoli, who heads Grenoble’s bureau des congrès and who is one of the project’s founders. We felt strongly that by working together we could explore markets that we normally cannot reach on our own and at the same time promote the Alps as a business tourism destination in general. This new approach is part of a campaign to bring partners together in an alliance. Marc BĂ©chet gave us the go-ahead, and now we really hope that we can extend the approach on a regional level, in a similar way to what happened with the TARA club (Tourisme d’affaires RhĂ´ne-Alpes). It’s worth pointing out that RhĂ´ne-Alpes has the third largest business tourism product in France, after Paris and the PACA region .
Two bureaux des congrès, Chamonix et Grenoble, two tourist offices (Courchevel, Évian) and the conference centre at Val d’Isère, supported by Annie Martinez who is in charge of promoting business tourism at RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme, will be doing their very best to ensure that the event is a success. Their aim will be to attract the attention of communication directors, professional event managers as well as conference, seminar and incentive organisers, 73% of whom will come from the Ile de France area (which in itself represents 70% of the French business tourism market)!
With Alpes Business Class, we want to show that the Alps are also a business tourism destination and that what we have to offer is entirely in line with the lakeside charms of Evian – its proximity to some upmarket ski resorts and itself a town right at the heart of the Alps, explains Yann d’Ascoli. We’re in a position to handle events of any size, and for those professionals who will be visiting us at Heavent we’ll be giving out a detailed information pack on each of our products, with the aim of persuading visitors that the Alps are truly an all-season destination. This is the first time that Grenoble will participate at the show, whereas Chamonix and Val d’Isère were at Heavent in 2006 .
The show is open daily between 10 am and 8 pm. The RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme stand will certainly be noticed for its mineral water bar , hosted by Lawrence Duval, who is in charge of marketing water at RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme. The total cost of the project is 50,000 euros, including 10,000 paid by RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme. Destination representatives will be Cathy MĂ©ot (head of the Chamonix bureau des congrès), Annie Martinez (RhĂ´ne-Alpes Tourisme), FrĂ©dĂ©ric Cretin (director of the conference centre at Val d’Isère), Yann d’Ascoli (Grenoble), Francis Jungo (Evian’s tourist office director) and Denis Zanon (Courchevel’s tourist office director).
Salon Heavent
