Let’s bienvenue... French lessons a hit with tourism sector

Guernsey has seen a boom in tourists from the continent, with nearly 7,000 so far this year, as of May – a 59% increase on the same period last year.

Increased and improved ferry day trips from France have led to the rise, and now Visit Guernsey and the Guernsey Institute are offering islanders a chance to improve their language skills to help communication.

Free sessions have been held for those in tourism, retail and transport, with Tuesday’s session at the Digital Greenhouse full to capacity.

Juliana Le Prevost from The Guernsey Institute hosted the session.

‘We created this course for people in hospitality, retail and transport, due to the rising number of tourists coming from France, which is creating more tourism for the island,’ she said.

‘I ran a course last week which was fully booked and this session was also very successful, we had quite a few coming to the course.

‘It was mainly people from the hospitality sector, which I was actually quite surprised about because I would have expected more people from different sectors, but I think the hospitality industry is taking it really seriously, and it’s good for them to have the French clientele.’

Mrs Le Prevost said that she had mainly been teaching how to greet customers, give directions using the map of Guernsey, numbers, how customers can pay and whether euros are accepted.

There are not currently any future sessions scheduled at this stage.

‘We’ll discuss it with the States and the tourism board because we think it would be great for the hospitality sector, everyone should have a little more skill in French,’ she said.

‘If tourism is going to continue this way, it’s something that we can really work on.’

The Guernsey Institute runs regular French courses for beginners, starting in September.