Abstract:

Following other European countries, France has now its own system monitoring the tourism behaviours of the french market. The paper will explain why and how we in SOFRES launched this French Travel Monitor in April 1990. Emphasis will be put on some methodological specificities of our tracking system. Then it will present the results of an analysis of the holiday and leisure stays market, bringing into light the different patterns of behaviours of various segments of population ; this segmentation takes into account three main factors : age, social status, size of community of residence. We will see how combination of these three factors lead to quite different ways of taking one's holidays.