Say Fromage

Paul sent me this.

Paris - Faced with a fall in tourist numbers due to the financial crisis and a reputation for unfriendliness, the Paris tourist board has made a simple request to the city's residents: smile.

Good luck with that.

Visitors to Paris, the world's most visited city, have fallen 17 percent since January compared with the same period in 2008, official figures show.

Boo freaking hoo! Too freaking bad!

To counter the slump and boost revenues, the tourist board has set up stands manned by teams of "smile ambassadors" to welcome holiday makers at the city's most popular spots.

They're paying people to smile? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Wonder if they're in a union? If you don't pay us more, we'll quit smiling.

As if to heed its call, hundreds of roller-skaters formed a giant smile in Place Vendome in the city center on Sunday.

"We have to work on striking

"stiking"? Was that a Freudian slip?

and simple images.

Gotta keep it simple for the French.

There's nothing as telling as a smile," said Paul Roll, who heads the tourist board.

Getting the Parisians to smile at tourists. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

In May, a questionnaire carried out by travel site TripAdvisor found Paris to be the most over-rated city in Europe, citing its high prices and unpleasant residents.

"unpleasant residents"? Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked...

Daniel Fasquelle, founder of a tourism association, said that French from all walks of life needed to play their part.

"If we want tourism, which has generated more than 2 million jobs, to remain a major economic sector, everyone has to get behind it — professionals, elected representatives and French people," he said.

Lemme know how that works out. I remember back in the 70's when we had a recession and Art Buchwald wrote a column about how tourism was so bad that they had a program like this to try and get Americans to come back to France.

Typical French. They're always there when they need us.

Posted by denny at July 13, 2009 10:04 PM  Category: French Bashing