TIME ZONES: An Hour With a Paris Shopping Coach
Chic, Trendy, Romantic, Creative or Original?
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Monday, January 21, 2008
PARIS
On St.-Germain-des-Pres, one of the most chic streets in Paris, pedestrians eyed shopping coach Katia Grimault with suspicion.
She smiled. She was friendly. She offered free advice on where to shop.
It was just after 2 p.m. Office workers were in a rush to get back to their desks after a late lunch. Shoppers were on their second wind.
"At first, people are very wary," said Grimault, 46, attired in the snow-white down jacket and ink-black pants of an official Paris shopping coach. "They're not expecting such friendly behavior. Parisians are, um, you know -- cold."
Paris is trying to change that image. Hoping to lure more visitors into the city during its slow winter months and put more euros into the cash registers of a faltering retail economy during January, the City of Lights this month launched a marketing campaign to make itself the City of Shoppers.
"It's not very French to promote France as a destination for shopping," confessed Paul Roll, tourism director for the city best known for the Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa and haute cuisine. "The subject is usually culture, or gastronomy -- but not shopping."
Tourism officials first had to try to counteract the city's reputation for having sales clerks who are notoriously ambivalent, if not downright hostile, toward customers.
It recruited students from the International Concierge Institute and other local colleges, and sent them to a one-day etiquette school.
"We were told that France is ranked 53rd in the world for kindness and a welcoming attitude," said Ryma Bououden, a 23-year-old pharmacy student working a white plastic information tent just off the main shopping drag of St.-Germain-des-Pres. "They said, 'You have to make up for it and be extra nice.' " She turned to offer a free shopping guide to a woman wrapped in a drab brown wool coat and clutching a red umbrella.
The woman looked quizzically at Bououden, glanced at the proffered booklet and muttered, "No thanks. I'm too old for that."
Bououden's smile never faltered. By 2:20 p.m., she'd been smiling steadily for more than four hours.
