> The choice of Marseille (with the jury’s congratulations!) Anne Sophie Vandesmet: Expédia® Corporate Travel Marseille (ECT) began with a major study carried out in May 2006. A call for bids was made to about fifteen towns in France and in Europe with a very precise specification dealing with three main criteria: - a job basin so that advisers can be recruited quickly and trained in the tourism business during each growth phase; - structures dedicated to training of our future advisers (schools preparing for the BTS (Higher Technician Certificate) in Tourism, local tourism training organisa- tions); - the possibility of recruiting employees with foreign languages skills (Southern and Northern European languages); with a pleasant lifestyle and work environment. There were originally two distinct development projects, firstly extension of the France customer service that was too cramped in Paris La Défense, and then the Europe service for which there were options throughout France, and also in Spain, Belgium and Ireland. The idea of being able to satisfy both of these requirements in a single location was put forward. The final choice was close, and was the result of a competition between Lille and Marseille, with a non-negligible challenger, namely Nantes. > Provence Promotion, single and ideal one stop shopping... The final choice was the Belle de Mai site in Marseille. Christophe Pingard, our CEO, Germain Huber, operations director and myself, the project leader, immedi- ately appreciated the premises, their environment and their access. But the big difference was the investment and involvement of the different local authorities, led by Provence Promotion. Even in the research phase, the development agency facilitated access to all organizations that we needed to contact to make our project successful, through a one-stop shopping outlet providing access to Marseille Provence Métropole, Paca Mode d'Emploi (providing services to companies in the PACA region), CG 13 (Bouches-du-Rhone General Council) and Euroméditer- ranée. As a result of their support, we were awarded local and national grants justified by the advantages and content of our job creation project (eventually 200 employees). A new “monster” at the Belle de Mai Media Park! After the successful set up of Monster, the world leader in online job offers, in 2005, the Belle de Mai Media Park has just welcomed the European leader of business travel on Internet namely Ex- pédia® Corporate Travel. For the second consecutive year, the largest foreign tertiary investment in France in terms of numbers of jobs is made in Marseille. This arrival once again confirms the attractiveness of Euroméditerranée as the Southern European platform for international compa- nies working in new technologies. Anne Sophie Vandesmet handled the setting up project from the beginning … Expedia® Corporate Travel Expedia Corporate Travel was founded in February 2000, and is now composed of more than 1300 customer companies in Europe, including 700 in France. Expedia® Corporate Travel is a subsidi- ary of Expedia Inc., and specialises in business tourism with integrated ser- vices. It is the European leader in man- agement of online business travel and it provides companies with global solutions to optimise their travel policy. By com- bining new technologies with service quality, it offers financial managers good visibility over management of business travel for their employees and makes it easy for passengers to organise their own reservations. Anne Sophie Vandesmet Expedia® Corporate Travel tell us... For further information The Expedia Corporate Travel web site: http://www.expediacorporate.fr/index.jsp 1/2 > Life in Mediterranean blue, with 15 employees already ECT’s activity on the Belle de Mai platform began in March 2007: - a “front office“ advisory and support activity for our professional customers through telephone, mail and our internet site; - a “back office“ activity dedicated to reimbursement and issue of electronic tickets. At the moment there are about fifteen employees at the Media Park; some were transferred from La Défense to Marseille and others were recruited locally, following a session organized with the Belle de Mai ANPE (Job Centre) at the beginning of January 2007. > Marseille at the “beautiful heart of Europe … The advantages of this new customer service are firstly to contribute towards growth of ECT sales, and also and espe- cially to develop and maintain the service level already achieved at our La Défense site. Because by 2009, Marseille will be ECT’s largest European customer service centre, in addition to the existing sites in: - La Défense, Lille and Lyon for France; - Manchester and London for the United Kingdom; - Munich for Germany; - Brussels for Belgium, The Netherlands and other European countries (outside France, UK and Germany). > Attractive atmosphere… Our first impressions, after setting up in Marseille in mid-March 2007 with the efficient help of SOGIMA (real estate agency), are good: our teams never tire of the pleasant setting with a view of the sea, what better could we want? We are very happy with the Belle de Mai site that is strongly NICT, multimedia and audiovisual oriented. Lunchtime is a very “people” oriented meeting time that we share with actors from the “Plus belle la vie” (television soap) (France 3). > … With a roof for ourselves! The proximity of Saint Charles station is obviously a major advantage. On the other hand, the timetables of public trans- port in the evenings is a little tight for our working hours: last bus at 19:30 and last metro at 21:30, not what we are used to in Paris! Finally, the search for housing by our employees - some transferred from Paris - took place well due to MPM, Unicil (and its EuroCil Mobility service) and Solendi, our organization for the 1% housing (tax paid by employer). At the same time, spouses benefited from the “Paca mode d'Emploi” system, six months customised assistance with job training and search offered by MPM working in cooperation with the BPI Company (Human resources consulting). Expedia® Corporate Travel tell us... 2/2