Compulsory reservations for streams, sites prohibited for motorhomes, parking far from hiking trails: with the resumption of tourism, France sees initiatives emerge to prevent the overcrowding of certain sites.
The most publicized action was the limitation for the first time this summer of the assistance of two coves in the coves of Marseille through mandatory reservations. But with the recovery of tourism that is slowly returning to its 2019 levels, before the pandemic, several places have faced an influx of tourists considered unmanageable, and are implementing techniques to deal with it that until now we thought reserved for cities. . like Venice or Barcelona.
Tourist guides, cinematographic successes, influence of social networks, the causes of the overcrowding, sometimes ephemeral, of certain places are multiple. To deal with this “overtourism”, “there are two solutions”, anthropologist Jean-Didier Urbain explains to AFP, “prohibition or regulation”. Outright banning of a site like Maya Bay in Thailand, a victim of the success of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach,” is not yet on the agenda for the time being in France, where tourist sites are targeting more regulation.
“Demarketing”
This can take different aspects, according to Jean-Didier Urbain. There is the reservation system, like the Calanques. “Museums were the first to adopt this type of regulation”, he underlines, “it becomes part of our customs, we go towards this type of thing”. Compagnie des Alpes, owner of Parc Astérix or Futuroscope in particular, “is experimenting in (its) parks abroad” with mandatory reserves to manage flows while its French parks have seen 20% growth this summer compared to 2019 , explains to AFP François Fassier, director of the group’s parks.
Regulation can also take the form of quotas. The island of Porquerolles in the Var has set an indicator of 6,000 visitors per day since July 2021. The island of Bréhat in the Côtes d’Armor, which welcomes more than 5,000 people for 400 inhabitants for a few days in the summer on its 3 km², has not yet established quotas but has decided to count its visitors and measure its impact this summer, according to the telegram.
“There is also dissuasion with the new term ‘demarketing’, a discourse that advises against coming on this or that day”, or even not coming, adds Jean-Didier Urbain. The site of the town hall of Bréhat thus warns of busy days. The town of Crozon (Finistere) has 7,600 inhabitants in winter, but 30,000 in summer and tries, in vain, to dissuade tourists from going to a small cove listed as one of the most beautiful beaches in Europe, and now closed to the public. Mayor Patrick Berthelot had told AFP in 2021 that he would now do “counter-advertising” for the beach.
Out of season
Another solution: a “dispersion” with “a deconcentration in space multiplying the places of attraction or a deconcentration in time”, explains the anthropologist, pointing out that “some cities are even considering night tourism”. The parks of the Compagnie des Alpes “are becoming less and less seasonal”, “we are going through the extension of the season”, according to François Fassier.
The Network of the Great Sites of France, which brings together tourist areas such as Mont-Saint Michel, the Dune du Pilat or the cliffs of Etretat, thus communicates “out of season” or even develops parallel circuits such as in Cantal where “five Maisons de Site” have been opened to “offer visitors the possibility of a broader discovery of the valleys of the Massif and the department, thus avoiding crystallizing assistance to Pas de Peyrol”.
Source: BFM TV
