Urban tourism. and Health tourism.

Urban tourism (or cultural)

These are tourist trips to the city. The number of vacancies in the city has increased by 50% an increase twice as fast as the total vacation. For the French, it is essentially a short-stay tourism (50% short stays are done in town).

The city is also the first space frequented by foreign tourists in France. The 3 most popular regions are the Paris region, the Rhône-Alpes region and the PACA region.

Cultural practices are the main activities of tourists in town. France has 38,000 monuments including 13,000 classified and nearly 8,000 museums. The Eiffel tower is the most visited cultural sites of the French with the Centre Georges Pompidou. Then come the Palace of Versailles, the Musée d'Orsay, Mont Saint-Michel and the Arc de Triomphe. Ile de France has 16 of the 25 most visited cultural sites.

60 recreational parks are attested in the country. They welcome over 25 million visitors a year and achieve a turnover of 1.5 billion euros.

France also has many cultural events with more than 500 festivals each year on various themes: music, theater, dance, comics etc.

The event tourism, which offers packages including admission to a general cultural event (concert, musical, Universal Exhibition) or sports (world championships, world cup), a major contributor to urban tourism boom. It is important to distinguish two types of events:

- Regular events held every year at the same time and in the same territory.

- Events "one shot", which are intended to be held only once

in the country (itinerant event like the Olympics).

    Health tourism

France has 106 spas that are 80% in mountain areas. The most popular are Dax (Landes), Aix-les-Bains (Savoie) and Balaruc (Hérault). They specialize in tool "therapeutic guidelines": rheumatology includes 60% of spa visitors, followed by respiratory tract (20%). Attendance spas focused on five months, from May to September. The agreement with spa (treatments are covered by Social Security) represents three quarters of sales of spas.

However, visits to spas that have experienced a significant decline (-15%) following the political economies pursued by the Social Security and the competition of foreign spas), the thermal environment has had to reposition itself on the the fitness industry. Thalassotherapy centers, numbering 44, are the champions

non-medical health tourism. Before 1990, the clientele was largely female, easy and relatively old. In recent years, the clientele has considerably rejuvenated and consists of urban with a good purchasing power, anxious to preserve their health from living conditions and stressful work. 77% of thalassotherapy centers have integrated or connected hotel facilities. The average length of stay is 6 days.