On the occasion of his visit to India, Laurent Fabius, Foreign Affairs and International Development Minister of France, met tourism professionals in Mumbai to promote France as a preferred tourist destination to Indian visitors. A selection of Indian travel professionals attended this event, during which the Minister announced new measures to further boost France’s image as a welcoming destination for Indian tourists. First, for Indian tourists, French visas will be issued within 48 hours as of 1 January 2015; and second, an official application for smartphones and tablets, has been designed for Indian tourists travelling to France.
The Links, a French marketing company, has developed the app for Indian tourists to Paris in a bid to ensure hassle-free visits to the popular destination. The app, named ‘Chalo Paris’, available in English, Hindi and French, will feature details about restaurants, tour spots, currency conversion, English-French translation, shopping, emergency contacts and maps. The app will be officially launched in September.
The app has been designed to work offline, although more information is available when connected to the internet. For instance, 10 important French sentences are available offline, while more are available when connected. The aim is to make the app a survival kit for Indians visiting Paris, and the features have been designed keeping in mind common problem faced by tourists such as the need for vegetarian restaurants, language barrier and details on local commute. For now the app only has details of Paris as it is the most popular destination in France, but The Links does plan to add more cities at a later stage.
