ATN-Q Partner’s meeting Cyprus

Contribution of ACTA InformatiqueEmmanuel LE MEUR – Rémy COFFION – Guy WAKSMAN

ACTA Informatique contribution• Communication in the weekly newsletters EFITA (in english)

and liste AFIA (in french),• Search of prospects in the area of agrotourism in France• Beginning the translation of delivrables

The french prospects

• Tourism Commitee of Orne Department (Normandy) : M. Poisson

• OCACIA (Certification Organisation in rural area) : Mrs Poudre

• « Bienvenue à la Ferme » with Agricultural Chamber of Gironde (near Bordeaux) :

M.Lafon Agricultural Chamber of Orne (Normandy) :

Mrs Legendre APCA : Mrs Bigourdan

Main points of the meeting with M.Poisson (TC Orne)

• Main motivations for Gites renting Only 37% financial reasons Mainly :

patrimonial (to keep and maintain familial property) the desire to meet people (e.g. for ex-sellers who

invest in the construction of farmhouses) the willingness to offer an accommodation in addition

to other activities (horse, etc.)

Main points of the meeting with M.Poisson (TC Orne)

• Main challenges : Risk of trivializing the offer

for example treehouses, trailers, etc. Many owners don’t want to go through a central booking

in order to « filter » the customers No more than 5 rooms (unless is considered as an hotel) Low fill rate (30%) versus 50-70% for the hotels Need to review / renew the equipment

for example : WiFi necessary

Main points of the meeting with M.Poisson (TC Orne)

• Conditions of rating in France Official ranking system (« stars ») is treated separately

from internal rankings (« épis », …) The first one is not free (# 200 euros), inspected by

certified organisms (ex. OCACIA) and approved by the local State Administration (« prefectures »)

For the second one, inspection and classification are services included in the cost of membership

Main points of the meeting with M.Poisson (TC Orne)

• Possible interests for EUAN “Eurogîtes” experience suggests the difficulty and the lack

of interest of a European approach: it is probably better for everyone to keep his fundamentals, and therefore to promote its own standards and brand policy.

Very hard to ask for an investment without close contactswith the French standardisation organisation (AFNOR)

What is the target group of EUAN ? What is the originality of this offer in each national

context?

Main points of the meeting with M.Poisson (TC Orne)

• Other networks may be interested in EUAN : « Accueil paysan » : emphasizes the values of sustainable

development : http://www.accueil-paysan.com/ « Atout France » : government network :

http://www.atout-france.fr/ « Clévacances » : theme stays :

http://www.clevacances.com « Fleurs de soleil » : guest houses :

http://www.fleursdesoleil.fr/

Main points of the meeting with Mrs Poudre (OCACIA)

• Ocacia is an organisation specialized in Certification (75%) Inspection (10%) Control (14%) Training (1%)

in agriculture and rural area and carrying on business

Main points of the meeting with Mrs Poudre (OCACIA)

• Examples of training GLOBALGAP : good practices in fruits, livestock

farming, crop farming, … HACCP : health and sanitary control Red Label Internal control …

Main points of the meeting with Mrs Poudre (OCACIA)

• Examples of activities Council for Equines Languedoc-Roussillon :

control of the specificationhttp://www.conseildesequideslr.com

« Planète bleue » : environmental certificationin horticulture : http://www.anjou-agricole.com/actualites/salon-vegetal-specialise-la-certification-environnementale-nouvelle-cle-d-acces-au-marche&fldSearch=:320TQZA9.html

“Bleu Blanc Coeur – Porc de montagne” : pig breeding http://www.porcdemontagne.com

Main points of the meeting with Mrs Poudre (OCACIA)

• Procedure for the certification of the hotels First contacts and information Request for an inspection Fullfilling of a « pre-diagnostic » Control visit and fullfilling of the grid by OCACIA Sending of the inspection report by OCACIA The hotel musts then send a demand to the local State

Administration (« prefecture ») The prefecture decides of the rating (1 to 5 stars)

Main points of the meeting with Mrs Poudre (OCACIA)

• Some « reserves » towards EUAN Both for the inspections "in house" or simply by signing a

charter of good practice, Ocacia doesn’t sees its place today in this market

Ocacia can’t consider the controls to match around both the "agricultural production" and agrotourism services. Audiences are too different.

Main points of the meeting with Mrs Poudre (OCACIA)

• Possible interests for EUAN Ocacia has other strategic priorities for 2011 but could still

be interested by this standard that should be brought to the attention of AFNOR.

The e-learning approach to EUAN is interesting because it looks like this one of GLOBALGAP :http://www.globalgap.org

Bienvenue à la ferme

• Still “on the run” :• M. Lafon (Agricultural Chamber of Gironde) recommended to

join the national structure (APCA).• We had a phone contact with Mrs Bigourdan, but no further

meeting was able to be planned for the time being.

Conclusions

• The contacts between ELOT and AFNOR could be very useful.• In France, it’s too early to ask the partner to be engaged.• We would need some concrete material to make

demonstrations.• It could be good to establish a ratio between « auto-diagnosis »

and Chart agreement.