Turning on the Gallic charm
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Tourism is big business in Paris, yet Parisians suffer from a little image problem - they are notorious for being aloof, if not downright rude to visitors. Now the tourist office is deploying a small army of "ambassadors" to encourage locals to lighten up and offer tourists a helping hand.
Tourism accounts directly for 12 percent of employment in the French capital, not to mention the hundreds of other jobs supported indirectly by the year-round influx of visitors. Despite this, the Parisians continue to be seen as “les misérables” of Europe, and travellers' tales of stunningly unhelpful hotel receptionists and grumpy waiters abound.
The Paris Tourist Office is determined to kick the stereotype and for 10 years every summer it has been sending out a hand-picked team of “Welcome Ambassadors” to the city's tourist hotspots.
This year there are 25 volunteers manning five infomation kiosks and 250 so-called "yellow jackets" who will help out tourists on metro and train stations.
The ambassadors have to be young, know their city inside out, and be able to field questions from bewildered tourists in at least three different languages. As well as giving directions to the Eiffel Tower, they have to be able to handle all kinds of queries, from giving the lowdown on local nightlife to tips on the notoriously difficult process of tracking down a Parisian taxi.
But most importantly, their job is to dispense this information in a friendly manner and at all costs avoid the notorious Gallic shrug.
As Carole Zerah, head of marketing at Paris’s central Tourist Office, says: "Probably the most important part of job is to welcome people and to give them information. So we focus on the simple fact of saying hello and smiling to people."
