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The merger of the Tourist Office of the Pays de Fougères and the Pays Touristique de Fougères has given rise to a new tool for the territory: Destination Fougères. With overall control of the chain (reception, information, promotion, development), Destination Fougères is responsible for completely revising the tourist strategy of the territory, on the scale of the Pays de Fougères.
The D.TOUR Project in a nutshell
Rather than engaging in the creation of new tools dedicated to a strategy that remains to be written, Destination Fougères has launched a service design approach, an innovative, creative and collaborative approach, based on understanding the functional and emotional expectations of future users. The methodology of service design thus allowing the tourist office to innovate by designing a service that is both useful, usable and aesthetic for the user/customer/user, but also efficient and differentiating for the company.
About thirty socio-pros gathered around Sophie Moreau from the We Bloom agency during one of the workshops of the D.TOUR project.
Project objectives
Destination Fougères wanted to experiment with an innovative service design approach applied to tourism. This service design aims to put the user at the heart of the reflection, in order to be able to offer solutions, a product, services that best meet expectations. The targeted users are: Tourists, visitors. The inhabitants. Although 3% of the Tourist Office's clientele resides in the Pays de Fougères, the inhabitants can represent up to 70% of tourist attendance at an event. Producers: private professionals (tourism companies), the communities and associations. Agents of Destination Fougères. Concretely, a series of participatory workshops, imagined and led by an expert in Service Design, made it possible to build the strategy of Destination Fougères on 3 components.
Define a “project territory” positioning
The objective was to single out the Land of Fougeres in the minds of visitors in the face of competition, based on different criteria (values, images, types of offers and experiences, prices, etc.). The work carried out has made it possible to choose a proactive positioning, at the crossroads between the territory (its identity, its values, its strengths, its differences, etc.) and the expectations of current and future visitors. This positioning, the backbone of the company's strategy, constitutes a tool at the service of the management and articulation of all the poles of activity (reception-information, promotion, marketing, marketing and development) and contributes to the implementation of a coherent action plan to achieve and consolidate the desired position in the minds of consumers.
Define new user services
Taking into account in particular the actions carried out within the framework of the Destinations, the aim here is to determine how digital technology can lead Destination Fougères to commit to future axes (new services to offer, new fields of action to explore, new equipment to be integrated)? Digital technology has profoundly transformed tourist activities in general, and the role of tourist offices in particular. In the age of Web 3.0, tourism is also undergoing a revolution under the influence of start-ups which are inventing new applications and innovative services dedicated to both individuals and professionals. Tourism is indeed one of the sectors that has been most strongly impacted by the development of tools, uses and digital content. A distinction is now made between e-tourism (tourism and web), m-tourism (mobile tourism via smartphones or tablets) and social tourism (the use of social networks for tourism).
Implement the proposals and tools resulting from this approach
This positioning and its digital challenges aim to strengthen the ability toreception of the Tourist Office Destination Fougeres. How can digital technology reinforce the place and role of reception and information agents, sales advisers during stays? How can we better welcome visitors tomorrow? This is to carry out a complete transformation of the Welcome Center of the Tourist Office. The objective is to adapt to new visitor expectations (hyper-personalization of demand, etc.) by putting people back at the heart of the reception strategy while capitalizing on the added value of digital tools. Concretely, the reflections relate to the disappearance of the reception desk and the reduction in the number of displays (and therefore paper supports) in favor of the development of a warm space, inviting the visitor to take the time to design his stay with real experts of the destination.
