Avignon Tourisme oversees a notably broad footprint: the Palais des Papes, the Pont d’Avignon, the Tourist Office, the Convention Center and the Exhibition Park. All of these sites have made access to connectivity as central as the organization of tours and events themselves. With nearly a million visitors each year and especially pronounced summer peaks, the reliability of the network directly shapes the on-site experience.
An infrastructure that had to scale up
Originally, the network infrastructure was limited to a narrow perimeter, focused mainly on internal needs. Over time, the arrival of fiber, the centralization of certain services, and the growing digital dimension of tourism pushed the organization to completely rethink its core architecture. The goal was now to connect distant sites, support more intensive usage, and guarantee almost continuous service continuity.
The development of business travel and the hosting of major events further accelerated the demand for capacity. Conference halls, exhibition spaces, and visitor areas must today accommodate thousands of simultaneous connections—among professionals, visitors, and internal systems—without compromising service quality.
A unified architecture built on NETGEAR
To structure this evolution, Avignon Tourisme chose NETGEAR solutions, progressively integrated at each step of the transformation. The infrastructure today comprises roughly 75 devices spread across all sites, forming a coherent architecture from the core network to the local access points.
The core and aggregation switches support higher throughput and the shift toward 10-Gigabit architectures, while the distribution and access layers ensure coverage tailored to each location’s constraints. Standardizing on a single family of equipment simplifies monitoring, reduces tool variety, and lowers operational complexity in a multi-site environment.
The choice of a progressive evolution carried a major advantage: service stability. The infrastructure was modernized without a major technological rupture, enabling significant continuity of service for end users. In a context where every network incident can affect events or visitor flows, this continuity is a key factor.
A phased deployment
As Pascal Borel, the IT manager of Avignon Tourisme, explains, equipment has been adopted gradually, as activities evolved. This progressive approach allowed the organization to preserve existing investments while supporting new needs.
Today, the network is no longer seen solely as a technical support system but as a direct link in the visitor experience. By 2026, the digitization of the Palais des Papes tour should illustrate this transformation, building on the already in-place infrastructure. Interconnected visits, digital content, mobile guides, and real-time services will all rely on stable, uniform connectivity.
