Atout France's answer to the actual situation

Every year, the Brussels office of Atout France, the France Tourism Development Agency, organizes a Round Table named ‘The Experts Panel’ with professionals from the Belgian Meetings Industry (incentive agencies, associations, corporates and press).

This year the Brussels office, represented by Mrs Valérie Devalériola, responsible for the Promotion and for Business tourism and Mr Vincent Toulotte, director, invited some keynote speakers to share their insight about the actual situation in Paris and Brussels.

Valuable insights were given by Mrs Sévérine Lesieur, Security & Crisis management consultant from Paris, Mr Jean-Pierre Renard, lawyer in Brussels, Mr Emmanul Suissa, tourism director of Value Retail and Mr Rodolphe Van Weyenberg, secretary general of the Brussels Hotels Association.

What was the impact? Less hotel bookings, cancellations of events (even upcoming) in Brussels, but overall the situation seemed to be relatively still in order.  The Vallée Village (Value Retail) even managed to host a group during the days following the Paris attack.  However, the questions remain: How to deal with such crises in future? What says the law? How to communicate to the clients?  And what about assurances? 

There are a lot of questions which still need to be discussed and analyzed.

However, this was a very good initiative of the Brussels Atout France office, which was appreciated by all present.