France Reveals Strategy To Curb Over-Tourism At Its Most Visited Sites

The new policy is to be applied during the tourism height of the summer months, when millions of visitors are anticipated. Olivia Grégoire, France's Minister of Tourism, outlined a plan this week to control the influx of tourists that endangers nature, local communities, and tourist experiences.

As foreign tourism recovers from the effects of the Covid limitations, France's tourist sector is expected to see a significant up-tick this summer. Moreover, the most visited country in the world requires more accurate data to help tourists avoid crowded areas.

In Paris, 37 million visitors are expected this year, down from 38.5 million in 2019, before the coronavirus crisis hit, but still a record. Similarly, the Mont-Saint-Michel abbey in Normandy is just one of several major tourist locations outside of Paris that reported being unable to keep up with demand.

In the height of the season, Etretat's northern beach may also attract as many as 10,000 visitors each day, putting a strain on the town's 1,200 permanent inhabitants, while the cliffs are being eroded and trampled by the large numbers of tourists. Moreover, many tourists only usually spend only a few hours in the area, thus the town's economy doesn't necessarily profit from them.

The island of Brehat in Brittany is one of many French tourist destinations that has instituted visitor quotas. There are fewer than 400 permanent inhabitants on the island, and its mayor declared last week that the number of day-trippers would be capped at 4,700 during the busiest time of the year.

The famous Sugiton coves in the Calanques national park close to Marseille require visitors to secure a time slot prior to arriving by using a free reservation system that was put in place during the Covid-19 outbreak and will continue to be enforced in the near future. At the same time, due to severe erosion, the number of visitors allowed at the site between July and August has been reduced from 2,500 to 400.

In order to boost the ongoing efforts, the Ministry of Tourism has pledged to establish a sector watchdog in an effort to identify tourist hotspots at danger from overcrowding and devise preventative measures. To assist contain the crowds, Grégoire argues that it is up to the country's administration, working closely with regional authorities and tourist attractions to establish methods for educating visitors and residents.

One such strategy may be to use social media "influencers" to promote travel irrespective of the peak season or to less-visited destinations. However, increased hotel taxes or access fees may be on the horizon to assist towns offset the expenses of hosting large numbers of tourists.

Didier Arino, leader of the Protourisme advisory committee, also stated that the country should safeguard fragile sites, as France already lost 30 percent of its biodiversity over the last quarter of century. Additionally, he argued for a coordinated approach to tourist promotion to ensure that the flood of visitors is evenly distributed across locations and times of year.

Eighty percent of yearly tourism activity occurs in barely twenty percent of the country's territory, thus the government is making an effort to lure tourists to less well-known regions of France.

 

Source: rfi.fr