Aujourd'hui, j'ecrie en francais parce que Wildwood ouvert un website en francais ici.
That's my terrible high school French way of saying that the Wildwoods have just launched a French version of their website, which you can see here.
Why French? Because, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article from last summer, 25 percent of visitors to Cape May county are from Canada, many of the French speaking variety.
It was like this when I was a kid, too. In August, you'd hear just about as much French as English at Avalon Campground. Two reasons why: many Canadian factories gave their workers three weeks of vacations in August, and the exhange rate between US and Canadian dollars was excellent. Cape May County even had a tourism person stationed in Montreal.
In the 1990s, the Canadan dollar's value dropped, as did the factory holidays. So did the flow of Canadian visitors. Recent leveling of the dollar, plus people my age who want to share that Jersey shore experience with their kids, is bringing Canadians back. It makes sense that Wildwood would be the one to start a French language website. They do have a motel called the Royal Canadian.
In an email about the website launch, Ben Rose, the always helpful and always friendly director of marketing and public relations for the Wildwoods, wrote, "With our increased marketing effort in Canada and strong interest from our Canadian neighbors, we felt the necessity to offer this service to our French Canadian visitors. We expect this new site to increase the response from the Canadian market." I've been marketing my book to Canadian writers, editors, publishers and bloggers as well (hey Zoey!), and given that I write for the inflight magazine for Air Canada...well, let's hope that the message about my book gets across the border!
1 comment:
It was the same way in the town I grew up in in Maine...a little High School French went a long way in the summer jobs I held!
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