#1 Tourist Office or souvenir shop...a ​​transformation of tourist reception?

After spending a few weeks on vacation in the south of France and Italy, I had the opportunity to visit several tourist offices to see how other destinations were organized in terms of tourist reception. But one thing began to strongly concern me. The place that boutiques were beginning to take within reception centers. We could say, Yes, but in Italy it's not the same... The problem is that I didn't discover this phenomenon in Italy but in France, in Offices of the same category as the one I manage today. On some sites, the store occupies more than two thirds of the space, to sell local products of course... but that can be big.

In a context where financing is increasingly complicated, with the sword of Damocles of intercommunal grouping which can sometimes confuse budgetary commitments, I understand that self-financing is a path to explore in the years to come and that the development of a store within a Tourist Office is essential now. But from there to transforming the reception into a souvenir shop, we change profession. Offering products from the destination brand is indeed important for its development, but a certain balance must also be respected.

Where is the development of our professions in all of this?

The current challenge, at a time when the digitalization of information professions is reaching an important stage, is to go further in a humanization of our information? To move from the status of Stay Advisor (who only has advice in name as long as the Tourism Code does not authorize us to provide real advice with real emotions and a bias which could nevertheless push destinations and their actors towards a real search for quality) to that of destination expert or do we want to recruit in a few years salespeople and salespeople for our receptions? I seriously ask myself this question.

There are other paths than the development of these souvenir shops that our structures can take, certainly by adding a share of risk in self-financing but which perhaps could also make our structures grow. Many still develop tourist or event projects willingly or by force at a loss, seeing themselves handed over projects or equipment which from the start are not economically viable, but that doesn't matter, the Tourist Office is like the festival committee or the neighborhood association which must please its inhabitants or partners, making money is not the goal... However today, being a Tourist Office is a real job, with real people, real professionals and real entrepreneurs...

So why think small about selling four t-shirts and a key ring per month when we could be a real economic player with projects that are at least financially balanced, offer a real professional development proposition to the staff of the Tourist Offices... and avoid transforming into a souvenir shop in the future?