The qualitefle.fr site, which lists 91 schools with “Qualité français langue étrangère’’ (QFLE) accreditation, received 106,004 visits last year against 77,352 in 2010 and 50,216 in 2009.

36.5% of visitors were said to have accessed the site in French, 36.3% in English, 23.7% in Spanish and 3.6% in German.

“The label’s reputation is certainly growing over the years,” said Katia Grau, head of communications for QFLE at the Centre International d’Etudes Pédagogiques (CIEP) which manages the QFLE label.

“We can see this in the fact that more and more people are visiting the website in search of quality French courses, and that more and more educational agents require language schools to be QFLE accredited.”

Through the site students, educators and study travel agents can search for courses and centres, and obtain advice on FLE exams and visas.

Grau said that Latin America (Colombia, Brazil, Argentina) and the Americas (US, Mexico) had shown most new interest in the site. Asian countries such as Japan and Thailand were also visiting more.

QFLE accreditation is the only government-backed accreditation (awarded by three ministries after an independent inspection) and accredited institutions are promoted abroad by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.

Last November, CampusFrance – the national agency promoting French higher education abroad – also agreed to market the QFLE schools through its education fairs and other channels.

CIEP said that while the growth was promising it had a long way to go to meet its visibility goals

CIEP said that while the growth was promising it had a long way to go to meet its visibility goals. It is now working on a new public website for 2013.

“The new website will be more ambitious: [users] will find information about daily life in France and services related to study abroad services. We expect this new site to have a number of visits 10 times higher than the current one,” Grau said.