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TOURISM

Has Mont Saint-Michel become an overcrowded tourist trap?

Two new reports have blasted the way visitors are treated at Mont Saint-Michel - the most popular tourist attraction in France outside Paris and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Published: 19 December 2017 17:29 CET
Has Mont Saint-Michel become an overcrowded tourist trap?
Photo: AFP
Each year roughly 2.5 million people visit the stunning hilltop abbey of Mont Saint-Michel which stands just off the Normandy and Brittany coasts in north west France.
 
But those tourists could have it so much better, according to new reports which blast the treatment of visitors to the UNESCO World Heritage site.
 
Normandy's social, economic and environmental council (CESER) as well as the region's accounting body CRC have both listed reasons why Mont Saint-Michel needs to up its game.
 
The 19-page CESER report lists “a series of malfunctions and recurrent problems around the reception of tourists.”
 
Among the problems it lists are the “overcrowded shuttle buses” that take visitors from the car park to the site, “roads regularly clogged with traffic” and “the low quality of shops, restaurants, museums and lodgings on offer that are frequently criticized.”
 
Photo: AFP
 
The site is also criticized for offering a lack of information to visitors and those that work there have been singled out for being unfriendly to tourists.
 
Jean-Luc Léger who is in charge of CESER criticized the bad management of the site. “The airplane needs a pilot,” he told France 3 TV.
 
He also criticized the emphasis on revolving door tourism.
 
“A tourist comes and the main goal is that they leave as quickly as possible in order to be replaced by another one. It needs a policy of building up loyalty,” he told France 3.
 
Léger also criticized the tourism professionals for concentrating their efforts on international visitors and forgetting that there are many potential visitors from the surrounding regions.
 
A C-130J Super Hercules flies past Mont Saint-Michel. Photo: AFP
 
The council does however comment the long term work done to restore “the maritime character” of Mont Saint-Michel that allows the sea to once again surround island.
 
The work, which involved clearing away silt, building a dam on the Couesnon river as well as building a new car park 2.5 kilometres from the island was described as an “aesthetic success” by CESER.
 
However the council raised concerns about a lack of financing that will keep the dam functioning in order to maintain the Maritime character of the site.
 
THE CRC suggests raising the price of parking and demanding more financing from France's Centre for National Monuments to help with the funding shortfall.
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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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