In France, where the government is pushing the button to redirect foreign tourists coming from all over the world to see the country's historical, cultural and natural riches, Tourism Minister Olivia Gregoire announced a plan to regulate the flow of visitors to the country's most popular tourist sites and to define a strategy against overtourism.
French Tourism Minister Olivia Gregoire said that her country, the world's largest tourism center, needs to better manage the peak season influxes that threaten the environment, the quality of life of local people and the good times of visitors, while it is estimated that the stampede in historical and cultural places that foreign visitors want to visit and see in the country, which is again flooded by millions of tourists after the coronavirus outbreak restrictions, is effective in this decision of the government.
Residents of some of the most visited historical sites, such as the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, are among the most vocal about the growing number of complainants. The seaside town of Etretat in northern Normandy, where some of the scenes for the Netflix crime drama Lupin were filmed and where 1,200 people live, receives 10,000 visitors every day in summer. Shai Mallet, Co-Chairman of the Etretat Hotels Association, complained that the influx of tourists was destroying the town's iconic seafront and historic cliffs, and expressed his frustration that the locals were not benefiting economically because visitors only stayed a few hours in the area, perhaps just for an ice cream, and did not always visit restaurants or hotels.
In France, where local authorities already limit visits to some historical and cultural sites during the summer months, the authorities are limiting daily visits to the island of Brehat to 4,700 people during the peak summer months. The management of the National Cliff Park in Marseille, which was previously visited by 2,500 people a day, will allow only 400 people a day in July and August.
According to the French Ministry of Tourism, 80 percent of annual tourism activity is concentrated in just 20 percent of the country, while 80 percent of annual tourism activity is concentrated in just 20 percent of the country, and higher accommodation taxes or access fees could also be introduced to help local communities cope with the costs of hosting visitors. Encouraging visitors to discover France's lesser-known regions should therefore be a key objective of the new strategy, the ministry said.
