Bivouacs prohibited in the Chartreuse valley, restriction of swimming in the Calanques and limited access to the Lavezzi islands, the Bavella pass and the Restonica gorges: measures aimed at limiting the tourist flow are increasing in France, notes The Republic.
“The excesses of post-confinement tourism affect many French regions”, explains the Italian daily. In fact, travelers frustrated by sanitary measures are catching up and many places are being taken by storm.
Last year, the flood of holidaymakers reached records in the Calanques. The area “may have been among the first victims of the consequences of local tourism” : road traffic, pollution, environmental degradation… From now on, access to the most touristic bays is only authorized for 400 bathers per day, against 2,500 usually.
“These are only the most extreme cases of a phenomenon which in France has given rise to a considerable number of restrictive measures, as well as to awareness campaigns carried out by local environmental and heritage preservation bodies.”
Pebbles and sanitation
In the Normandy seaside resort of Étretat, the “ocean crowd” worries environmentalists, both for safety issues and for the conservation of the cliffs. Especially since some tourists take the pebbles as a souvenir. “According to a 2019 estimate, in high season visitors manage to remove nearly 400 kilos of pebbles from the coast per day.”
The town, which has only 1,600 inhabitants, had to deal with maintenance work on its sanitation system, which is not planned for such a surge of travelers.
In addition to the restrictive measures, initiatives are emerging, such as the partnership set up by the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, with the Waze road application to warn people in the event of a high influx of tourists. A system that Mont-Saint-Michel also uses to indicate to its approximately 3 million annual visitors when the abbey is full for entries.
“Improve ridge paths and signage, adapt waste collection to new tourist volumes” : there is a lot to do to welcome the crowds and it is by becoming a Grand Site de France that the small town of Étretat hopes to find the funds to face this crisis affecting the environment and caused by tourism.