(list of participants in attachment)

As a preamble, we would like to thank the Pays de Manosque Tourist Office for having made the Bernard Morucci room available to us free of charge for this seminar.

The participants in the seminar asked that Les Routes de la Lavande®, in its role and with the means at its disposal, become a more committed brand alongside the industry and move forward in the directions listed below:

• The Routes of Lavender® are first and foremost a media, amplifying good practices, that can create / relay positive and reassuring messages about lavender.
• They can help to cement the complementarity of the sector and accelerate its reactivity, around a tourism development, which has become an absolute necessity in a context of crisis.
• They can encourage a more responsible tourism marketing, by prioritizing quality products / companies, by boosting the wings of the season and by encouraging soft mobility totravel the routes...
• They must finally dig into the extremely richimagination of lavender, in order to tell inspiring stories and continue to make people dream. As Maurice Chaspoul, President of the first Steering Committee of the Routes of Lavender®, says: " Lavender is beautiful, it fills your heart, it rises in your chest!

We are now going to come back in detail on 4 key points, which really structured our exchanges and give a framework for future action:

• Promote the wings of the season
• To develop a brand with a positive communication about lavender
• Developing complementarity and responsiveness
• Participate in the emergence of a collective tourism marketing necessary and responsible

1. Promote the wings of the season

• The flowering is an "explosion" limited to about 3-4 weeks, sometimes out of sync with the school vacations and increasingly difficult to predict well in advance, given the climatic changes.

• In the "high season", the problem is to manage (over)traffic, which can be excessive and destructive (French and international customers, including long-haul, individual customers and TO / coach operators). It is also a period, where it is very complicated to encourage soft mobility, because of the heat and the road traffic.

• Off-season (March to June + September/October), when most tourist establishments of all kinds are already or still open, there are :
• An important potential to be revealed / developed. "Valensole is incredible from March to November. Including in winter, when "lavender under the snow is pretty!"
• "A more relaxed, affluent clientele to capture."

2. To develop a brand with a positive communication about lavender

To support direct sales, in order to preserve income, in a context of significantly lower wholesale prices, "where the selling price is lower than the cost price."

• To designate and promote quality actors. "Direct sales is a profession, you have to be fully committed to it".

• To " support this emblematic plant that we live," at a time when it is attacked on its toxicity and where customers are concerned, while regulations are stacked. There is a need to explain and reassure: "we have gone from an extreme of overuse to distrust!"

• To satisfy a need for pedagogy in all the lavender places, from the producer to the spa of the Villa Borghese, where "customers ask questions about massage ingredients, without anyone really knowing how to answer." "Because we need to send a sign, which is a guarantee of safety and reliable information, in a area where no one understands anything. " "Because seeing the same sign everywhere, it gives credibility!

• To tell beautiful stories, from the incredibly deepimagination fed by the plant. From initiatives in the field: from the UNESCO candidacy to the creation of itineraries (within the framework of Bienvenue à la Ferme for example). From individual stories and characters closely linked to the land... " When I take someone to a lavender field, I don't have to do anything. The magic happens and it works by itself..."

• To haveelements of language, in order to speak to politicians and local authorities, who use the image of lavender, without really questioning the means to be engaged to defend it and ensure its durability. It's time to "push harder." "We've given too much of an impression that we're an industry that works on its own..."

3. Developing complementarity and responsiveness

Lavender "represents us, identifies us". It is a vector of identity, which unites or should unite beyond the diversity of actors: "from the plant to the marketing of tourism". This identity is multi-faceted. To reveal its richness, the Routes of Lavender® must highlight and tell the story of the complementarity of women and men, companies and trades and even lavender (fine lavender in the mountains, for example).

• Interest in highlighting complementarity:
• It "allows visitors to see different workings and they are interested" .
• It strengthens solidarity by putting people at the service of each other. The hosts can be "showcases for producers," for example.
• She reveals the economic models: "It is the store that makes us live, but if there was no distillery people would not come to the store."
• It bears witness to the agricultural changes underway, notably with the diversification of crops and therefore of landscapes.
• It highlights the interdependence within a particular ecosystem, which reminds us that lavender, emblem of France alongside the Eiffel Tower, Mont-Saint-Michel, or Mont Blanc is not naturally perennial, etc.

• Why more reactivity?
• To alleviate/compensate for the frustration, "in those who arrive after the battle, due to the increasingly early harvests" .
• To work more collaboratively.
• To give ourselves the means to develop educational or crisis communication messages.

• More reactivity to deal with frustrations, "because of the ephemeral nature of the scents and visuals". (cf. the initiative of leaving an uncut field on display), or because it is possible to confuse a trading place with a place of cultivation... we must share " a broader view of the blooms". It is necessary to know immediately where to send frustrated clients, be able to advise them of alternative mobility to access secret locations, etc.

The challenge is "to always have the right information, knowing that the flowering periods change a bit..." "To know how to systematically address the business tourism companions, who come outside the flowering season. "To know how to systematically address the accompanying persons in business tourism, who come out of the flowering season."

To develop reactivity, you need controlled digital means, at the scale of the route:

• "More flexible, responsive tools to help with responsiveness in the areas of location and bloom time to generate more traffic to partners."
• Collect, distribute and share customer experiences... " We don't capitalize enough on the customer experience. We don't think enough about the customer journey and its design..."
• Sharing of contents, internal databases (starting with the one of all the participants of the Routes of Lavender®).
• Means that boost natural referencing, that collect and use data... Use of QR codes, "on the back of postcards, available in the tourist offices, for example"...

• Acting jointly on complementarity and responsiveness means developing thenetwork effect and the collective dynamic.

4. Participate in the emergence of a collective tourism marketing necessary and responsible

• A new battle for Les Routes de la Lavande®?

"They were created following a crisis in the lavender market. It was to structure a tourist network on the subject of lavender. Today, we are again in a crisis. We have a real capital, which it would be a shame to lose.

• A new battle against adversity, but also for the promotion of responsible tourism.
• "Filing a slow tourismcharter."
• Encourage cycling and walking, very much in line with the season's wings. "We put ourselves in Vélo Loisir Provence". "The departmental tourism plan that will come out includes an important point on roaming." "People need to know easily where to rent a mountain bike and where to go with it..." "Recover the spirit of soft mobility".
• Promoteagritourism. "For 2 or 3 years we have created a lavender route on the Valensole plateau, with a logo, etc. Agritourism is a strategic direction."
• Communicate on diversification: "For 3 years, we have been growing olive trees, almond trees..."
• Communicate on the project of inscription in theUNESCO heritage of the olfactory and poetic landscapes of lavender, which connect us at a high level on the national and international level.
• Do not aim for the mass market. Go for quality in terms of French and European clients. "Translate the site into English at least.

Conclusion

Lavender is a real emblem for Provence and Provencal tourism owes a lot to lavender growers. To accompany a sector in crisis, Les Routes de la Lavande® can provide a share of credible solutions:

• In their role as media, to give a positive image of lavender
• In their structuring role, to support diversification towards direct sales and to extend the season
• In their federating role, to reinforce the intrinsic link between agriculture and tourism and to have more influence with the communities.

In the preceding lines, there are the constituent elements of a marketing strategy, which have yet to be written. If we have the means to do so, the Routes of Lavender® will echo, in the most committed way possible, all private, public, and associative actions that support the industry. We can also be at the origin of an editorial committee which, if the actors of lavender wish it, would constitute the base of a governance, or a coordination. The question of means is crucial to give ourselves a strong ambition that is equal to the stakes. The rest is to be written together...