Gone so soon. Tourism, highlighted during the pandemic with the cessation of travel and the closure of restaurants, vigorously supported by state aid and massive loans, winner of ministerial arbitrations and beneficiary of a specific recovery plan, seems to have already returned to the shadows to which politics have relegated it since the end of Gaullism. The subject remains in the blind spot of the candidates for the presidential election, despite its role in regional planning and its economic and social importance, with these figures that the actors repeat like a mantra: two million jobs, 7.5% of gross domestic product, the first positive contributor to the balance of payments. And zero mention in the program of the candidate president, Emmanuel Macron.
Demonstration of the lack of interest suffered by the sector: not a candidate had moved, Wednesday, March 23, to address the representative organizations. The day before, Valérie Pécresse (LR), Fabien Roussel (PCF) and Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!) spoke to the hunters (1.1 million practitioners). Out of five invited by the French Institute of Tourism (IFT), chosen according to opinion polls, four had sent a representative; Jean-Luc Mélenchon had to agree the day before that no one in his campaign was sufficiently enlightened on the matter to speak on the subject.
Replacing him at short notice as representative of Yannick Jadot (EELV), the tour operator Christian Soubra was forced to admit that, in his movement too, the subject did not exist: “For twenty years, I have been telling my party that tourism is an unthought. It’s complicated to make them understand that, when you talk two and a half hours to sports actors (March 17, facing the French National Olympic and Sports Committee), it’s good to take twenty minutes to talk to tourism stakeholders. »
Only Marine Le Pen dwells on it
The ace. The meeting especially highlighted the lack of vision of the political world on subjects specific to the sector: how to make so that more French people have access to holidays? How to retain the wealthy domestic clientele that has favored France for the past two years? What future for the promotional body Atout France? To which territorial level should tourism policy be entrusted? What indicators and means of piloting this policy? How to boost the attractiveness of the sector, accommodate seasonal workers, facilitate the environmental transition of the sector, prepare for climate change, distribute tourist flows, promote rail tourism, manage the proliferation of seasonal rentals?
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