Cat-Khe no longer helps lost tourists in Paris. Replaced by AI
Since 1991, the visitor advisor has answered and memorised the answers she has given to over a million tourists. She has one conviction: ‘in Paris, tourists and visitors don't have to look for us’.
Cat-Khe won't be going on holiday with Corinne Menegaux, as the late Thierry Roland might have said. While Corinne Menegaux, CEO of Paris Je t'aime, has quietly closed down the last remaining point of contact for tourists, Cat-Khe tells us about her career as a tourist advisor and what she believes to be the heart of the job of a receptionist who loves the city that employs her.
What was your background before joining the Paris Tourist Office?
I was born in Germany and both my parents are Vietnamese. After my German baccalaureate, the Abitur, I went to France to study Chinese at INALCO, Langues' O, as they call it, and I've been there ever since; it's been almost forty years. I love France. You have everything here. I've travelled a lot, visited the capitals of Europe, Asia and the United States; for me, Paris is and remains the most beautiful city in the world.
How long have you been working here, and what would you say are the milestones in the life of the Paris Je t'aime reception offices?
Before I get into all that, I'd like to share something that's important to me with your readers. I would never say ‘It was better before’ but! ‘It was different! I'm very happy to have had the chance to experience both extremes. When I started my career at the Paris Tourist Office in 1991, there were 38 reception and information staff on ‘open-ended contracts’ (the first important French administrative expression I learnt). During the ‘high season from April to the end of September’ (a completely different model nowadays with last-minute travel, RTT, teleworking, etc.) we recruited up to 24 seasonal workers to help us out.
Apart from the Gare Saint Lazare, we had an office in every station (Nord, Est, Lyon, Austerlitz and Montparnasse), a kiosk at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and in Montmartre. In summer, it was packed with people behind and in front of the counter. Up to 1,600 visitors a day. We also provided information and advice on the whole of France. There was no internet, but telex, telephone, minitel and information papers. And I think I was lucky enough to have a fantastic memory. Before AI, we already had a memory :)
As I was too lazy to look up the information or telephone numbers of the service providers each time (we did almost all the bookings by telephone), I practised and managed to remember the answers given. For every question I was asked, at least once! Maybe that's why people often say to me, ‘You've got all the answers! Yes, when you've answered more than a million people, you've got quite a repertoire of answers. One of the Office's former directors used to call me Slumdog Millionaire, after the story of the young Indian who had the right answer to every question he was asked in the popular TV game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’. It's the school of life that enables us to give the right answers. For our head office, we had prestigious locations: Champs Élysées, Pyramides, Hôtel de Ville.
Here we are in 2025, with nothing left. No more physical reception desks, not even one, but instead a QR code, sheets in five languages with the QR code, a website and newsagents, paid €100 a month to replace us. A partnership has been set up with the Post Office, but many postal workers aren't even aware of it. Besides, what kind of tourist goes to a post office? I asked around: ‘When do you go to the Post Office? When you have to, because you weren't at home when the parcel arrived! You get the impression that they're trying to make us understand that with or without physical reception, Paris will always have tourists.
There's one image that makes it easy to visualise and understand what happened in Paris: a pyramid. Before, and this is logical, a large number of employees and tourist advisers coexisted with few managers. Now the pyramid is reversed: there are many managers and few people in front of the tourists.
The PAT, the last physical reception point, has closed due to a lack of resources and revenue. What do you think about this?
As a reminder, and this is important to me, Paris je t'aime - Office de Tourisme is not a start-up, nor an advertising company, nor a communications company, nor a web agency, nor a press agency, nor a trade fair organiser or a marketplace, such as Amazon or EBay. It's utopian to hope for that. We're not quoted on the stock exchange and we're not in the CAC 40. We don't have the financial resources, and it's not our job. The oft-heard phrase ‘You have to look for money or subsidies’ is tiresome and unbearable.
With your hindsight and expertise, how should a city, a capital such as Paris, organise its physical, telephone and digital reception?
You have to be practical and logical. What distinguishes today's tourist from yesterday's is that many have already booked the basis of their stay: their hotels, their entrance tickets (some of which are compulsory) to the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre, for example. Advance booking is the new way of doing things, and has been a must since Covid, and will continue to be so. But there are still plenty of other people who have trouble with the internet, even more so with digital technology, or who just want to disconnect for the duration of their holiday. Unfortunately, we never count these people.
Everyone wants the same things when they travel: to discover interesting places, to visit places they don't have at home, and to rest and relax. Nobody wants a complicated, hard holiday, because that's what you already experience every day when you're working. Holidays shouldn't be like or remind you of work. Make the most of the time, accompanied or unaccompanied, without waiting too long and, if possible, get unbeatable value for money. I'm not talking about luxury tourism here, but about the average person who makes up the majority of a Tourist Office's clientele. And that's without taking into account all the unforeseen events that a trip can entail. (Read the true stories opposite).
To meet all these expectations, first of all, tourists must not be ‘looking’ for us. Because our job is to welcome them, to be there where they arrive. When they arrive at the airport. This mission is already being fulfilled by the Choose Paris Region agency, an expert in promoting the ‘Paris Region on a national, regional and global scale’ in our two airports at Charles de Gaulle and Orly.
My second conviction is that the primary role of a tourist office is to be a hub, in the midst of service providers (theatres, cabarets, concerts, exhibitions, etc.), hoteliers, restaurateurs and historic monuments. There's so much on offer that tourists still need advice. How many times have I heard people say ‘We want to do everything!’ to my question: ‘What do you want to do? If Paris je t'aime - Office de Tourisme, is located in the right places, our offices will always be inundated with visitors. Next, we need to rebuild a strong, stable, high-quality partnership with the SNCF. We need to re-establish our presence in all stations and communicate this officially on all networks. A central office should complete this, ideally on the forecourt of Notre Dame, at the level of the platform facing the Cathedral. With so many people coming and waiting, there's no doubt that we won't be idle for a single second.
What about telephone reception?
Many people have long regretted the fact that we cannot be reached by telephone. You can't invent a telephone reception service. A stable line, capable of handling several calls at the same time, with staff on hand to answer quickly and not just press 1, press 2, press 3. I feel the same way about digital kiosks. They work well for fast food outlets and ticket offices. But they're not suitable for welcoming and providing information. Very often, the aim is to look ‘modern’ or to save staff, but in most cases, it doesn't work well or it gets damaged quickly, you have to update it all the time and in Paris there's too much on offer. In other words, don't travel any more, put on the virtual reality helmets, Google the images and travel like that. Our job as advisors is to understand, in a short space of time, the wishes and desires of our tourists and then give them the advice that best suits them. We have to adapt and personalise our responses. A well-informed, well-received tourist will have a memorable experience and will talk about it.
Do you remember a tourist office you visited that you found efficient?
The most beautiful Tourist Office I've ever seen is the one in Bilbao. Stunning! The ‘Wow’ effect was indisputable, thanks to a lovely, competent and efficient team. And that's so normal: when you're seen at your true worth, you're boosted and you surpass yourself.
Cat Khe speaks nine languages: German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Chinese, Vietnamese and French, of course!
Lost tourists in Paris: Cat-Khe's anecdotes
On the Champs-Élysées: just 10 minutes before closing time, two Vietnamese tourists, in distress, lost. After watching their video a dozen times with their camera in the taxi... we found their hotel, which was in Bondy!
At the Gare du Nord: Helmut (a German tourist) arrives, sweating and completely panicked. He'd lost his group in Montmartre.
Me: ‘Bitte beruhigen Sie sich. Wo ist denn Ihre Unterkunft?’ - ‘Please calm down. Where is your accommodation?’
Him: ‘Keine Ahnung!’ ‘No idea!’
Me: ‘Was sehen Sie denn in der Nähe, um das Hotel?’ - ‘What do you see near, around your hotel?’
Him: ‘Eine Fontaine’ - ‘A fountain’.
Well, we won't go far now. There are hundreds of them in Paris.
Me : ‘An was erinnern Sie sich denn? Mit was sind Sie denn gekommen? Mit der Metro ?’ - ‘What do you remember? How did you get here? With the metro?’
Him: ‘Mit unserem Reisebus!’ - ‘With our coach!’
His face suddenly lights up! He remembers, unbelievably, the number plate of his coach!
I call the German embassy, who find out in a quarter of a turn which travel agency owns the coach. I called the agency in Germany and was given the address of its hotel. I wrote everything down on a piece of paper and told him to go back and meet his group.
Bureau des Pyramides: Four Brazilian tourists are desperate to visit Lisieux. They only have one day left! Impossible to find a train, a bus .... I called a taxi for them. You never know, do you? I always say you have to ask, but if you don't ask, you're sure to get a ‘no’. And once again, it was a ‘yes’. The taxi driver made a day of it and won four charming and grateful friends! They met me at the Pyramides office the next day after Lisieux to thank me and give me a hug! I just love it!
At Spot24, our last ‘place’ of welcome: I was given a British passport. Someone had found it in the street. I inspect it, see who it belongs to. Find the girl on LinkedIn. Find out where she works. Calls her work, who asks me in puzzlement, ‘How did you find out?’ They give me her mobile number which I call. It answers! The girl will have to return to London but due to a lack of passport had to book several extra nights to re-do a passport ... her Eurostar was leaving in the evening. Me: ‘Where are you now?’ She gives me the address of her hotel. Oh, but it's very near. Well, I brought her passport and she was able to catch her train the same day!
The Paris Tourist Office since 1971
Created in 1971, the Paris Tourist Office is chaired by Pierre Rabadan, who took over from Jean-François Rial, who in turn succeeded Pierre Schapira. Paul Roll and Nicolas Lefebvre successively headed the Office, before Corinne Menegaux was appointed. The organisation spent up to a million euros on rent for its head office and reception area when it was located on rue des Pyramides. It currently employs 63.7 FTEs (full-time equivalents), including 10 directors plus the general manager. Is equipped with Salesforce.
Interview by Manuel Jacquinet.