About Visit France.fr and tourist info
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
more about France
Phone Book of the World.com
Wikipedia
France has a 5,500 km coastline along the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranian
54 Unesco World Heritage sites
Top 10 Tourist Attractions of France
- 01
- 02
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- 05
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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 was 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
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 "France Guide" was developped and later rebranded as "Atout-France"
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
2012 VisitFrance.com displays sponsored links
2015 Visit France.com aquired by the US geo domain investor
Fred Mercaldo
2018 VisitFrance.com listed for sale
2019 Atout France develops a new branding concept around the expression
"Explore France"
2024
The domain VisitFrance.com listed for sale for 250.000 USD
2025 price of VisitFrance.com raised to 350.000 USD by October 2025
2026 VisitFrance.fr domain aquired and redirected to private Tour Operator
FrenchSideTravel.com activation 01-04-2026
2026
VisitFrance.com domain sold by Fred Mercaldo and aquired by web pioneer
Marcus Cent / Visit Network already owner of several othe country domains like VisitSlovenia.com
Launch the new website
VisitFrance.com effective 11-05-2026
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
Map of France (Google Maps)
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