About Visit France.com
and Tourist Information

Visit France.com
is listed for sale


Atout France
French Tourist Board
France.fr
77, boulevard Saint Jacques
75014 Paris
France
+33 1 42 96 70 00

mail: atout.france "at" atout-france.fr

instagram: @explorefrance
youtube: youtube.com/atoutfrance
facebook: fb.com/EN.ExploreFrance
X: x.com/atout_france
linkedin: linkedin.com/company/atout-france/



more about France
Phone Book of the World.com
Wikipedia

Whitepages.fr


France has a 5,500 km coastline
along the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean
and the Mediterranian
54 Unesco World Heritage sites


Hotels.com
Offers from Hotels.com




Top 10 Tourist Attractions
of France


1) The Louvre Museum

2) Mont Saint-Michel

3) The Palace of Versailles

4) The Eiffel Tower

5) The Loire Valley Castles


6) The Pont du Gard

7) The Medieval City of Carcassonne

8) The Centre Pompidou-Metz

9) Notre Dame de Paris

10) Strasbourg Cathedral




History of the website
and Tourism Marketing
in France


FranceGuide.com
Domain Registration date: 11-02-1996

Visit France.com
first Domain registration date: data lost, before 1996 / 1998
new Domain registration date: 15-01-2004

Visit France.fr
Domain registration date: 18-07-1999
(before 11-05-2004 liberalization of .fr domains)
The domain is used as a redirection
to VisitEurope.fr, a website of the Austrian Tour Operator
Visit Europe / Travel Europe

RendezvousenFrance.com
Domaon registration date: 19-06-2008



Timeline

1910 France is the first country
to have created a marketing organisation
for Tourism,
the ONT, Office National de Tourisme
founded
under the initiative of
Alexandre Millerand (1859 - 1943),
minister of "Travaux Publics"
The first director was Albert Mahieu.

The brothers Edouard Michelin (1859 - 1940)
and Andre Michelin (1853 - 1931)
also contributed to develop
the Tourist industry through
the invention of the famous Michelin
Hotel and Restaurant guides.

ONT was in activity until 1935

1917
ONT created une Chambre nationale
de l'Hotellerie Francaise

1935 ONT was replaced by the
"Commissariat de Tourisme".



1987 The next institution was called
"Maison de la France"
created under the presidency
of François Mitterrand
who removed Tourism
from the Ministry of Indusrty,
Poste and Telecommunications.

Jean Jacques Descamps
accompanied the creation of
Maison de la France

Maison de la France contributed
to set up different measures to protect
historic landmarks and to
preserve the beauty of country,
one of the main reasons
why the country remains so attractice.

1996 The French Tourist board
initially used the internet domain
FranceGuide.com
capitalising on the expression
"guide"

2004 While Leon Bertrand
was Secretary of State
for Tourism
Maison de la France
missed the sale of the domain
VisitFrance.com

It was aquired by
Fred Mercaldo,
a visionary web entrepreneur
from Arizona, USA

Mercaldo has an impressive portfolio
of hi profile geo visit domains
which also included other countries.
like the recenly sold
Visit Egypt.com,


2009 Atout France
was founded 22-07-2009
through the merger of
Maison de la France
and ODIT France

The agency is supervised
by a government organisation,
the Ministry of Tourism.
This followed an initiative of Herve Novelle,
secrétaire d'Etat du Tourisme
with the idea to modernise
tourism promotion tools.

The agency has the mission to promote
France as a tourist destination.

As the agency did not yet exist
during the early years of the Internet
they missed the avant-garde
registration
and the later sale
of the
web domain
VisitFrance.com

Instead the brand FranceGuide.com
was developped
and later rebranded
as Atout-France.fr

Other French speaking neighbours
like Belgium, Luxembourg
or Monaco all adopted
"visit"

Atout France has a board of 37 directors
12 representatives of the state
25 tourism professionals

The domain VisitFrance.com
is currently listed for sale
for 250.000 USD





Visit Domains
and Tourist Boards
in neighbouring countries

France has borders with 9 countries
Check out Tourist Information in these countries

Visit Andorra.com
Visit Belgium.com
Visit Germany.com
Visit Italy.com
Visit Luxembourg.com
Visit Monaco.com
Visit Spain.com
Visit Switzerland.com
Visit UK.com via Eurotunnel