Coach Omnium

🏨 🏨 Coach Omnium and Groupe 1001Salles released their 32nd annual study on business tourism trends in France for 2024 and projections for 2025. Post-Covid recovery mirrors 2019 MICE (Meetings, Incentive, Conventions, Events) levels, despite a 50% decrease in MICE activity and two-thirds reporting reduced budgets over the past three years. The study reveals a preference for hotels as meeting places over the past two years, with increasing interest in castles and unique venues, while theme parks have waned in popularity.

🏢 Coach Omnium, a firm studying MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions) since 1991, highlights in their 2024 study over 200 convention centers and exhibition parks across France, with a focus on regional markets outside the 21 major Francilian venues. The study, evolving from 2015 and 2018, emphasizes significant renovations and the emergence of new structures, partly due to Covid-19's impact and a shift towards environmental and RSE concerns. Hybrid management with the SPL model is becoming more common. Post-Covid, over half of the surveyed venues reported activity increases in 2023 compared to 2022, with the trend continuing into 2024.

📖 Coach Omnium, expert en MICE depuis 1992, analyse les changements du marché sur 20 ans. En 2004, 18% des entreprises organisaient des événements, contre 72% en 2024. Les séminaires d'autrefois, souvent plus petits et festifs, ont cédé place à des réunions plus courtes et professionnalisées. Les hôtels chaînés, autrefois préférés à 89%, sont désormais en concurrence avec des lieux variés. En technologie, de simples rétroprojecteurs ont évolué vers des équipements high-tech. L'internet n'était pas largement utilisé en 1994, contrairement à aujourd'hui. Les préoccupations écologiques sont passées de quasi inexistantes à 83% des commanditaires y prêtant attention en 2024.

📝 Coach Omnium, active since 1991, studies the MICE market, particularly seminars, through regular surveys. Post-Covid, the seminar market has revived, with 82% of corporate event organizers rating MICE providers as good professionals and 90% of participants eager to attend seminars. Common dissatisfaction includes lack of provider creativity (37%), high prices, expensive extras, commercial disappointments, and inadequate facilities. Complaints from participants also focus on difficult access, poor maintenance, insufficient technical equipment, uncomfortable rooms, subpar catering, and unengaging content. Quality of the overall seminar experience impacts customer loyalty.

📈 Media outlets annually produce end-of-season tourism reports that are often criticized for their lack of reliability and potential bias. Organizations and tourism promotion bodies provide subjective statistics and trend-based inquiries, which lack solid data on tourist numbers and spending. The French Ministry of Tourism and Atout France provide figures without transparent methodology. The INSEE offers the most reliable barometer for the hotel and camping sectors, but their findings are also declarative. Tourism trackers like Flux Vision Tourisme/Orange aim to geolocate tourists via smartphones, but this method has limitations and cannot fully quantify real visitor numbers. With approximately 3 million French living abroad, tracking international tourists is further complicated. Media and political entities sometimes rush to provide information, occasionally inventing data. The reliability of tourism reports varies based on the source, with biases ranging from optimism to self-interest. Despite these challenges, there is value in having an overview of the tourism sector, albeit imperfect. It is crucial for the tourism industry to operate on credible data.