#8 Tourism in France from its genesis to the post-war period

In a world of tourism where the advent of digital has profoundly changed the situation, globalized the offer or accentuated the divide between destinations and their territorial policies. Tourism stakeholders have also seen their jobs change. Their destinations became brands and marketing departments arrived to manage them like products.

This is in an ideal world where there are no intermediate measures...

The reality is that change is taking place but it is also accentuating the divide between the different territories, those who have taken advantage of the digital wave to completely review their approach to tourism and those who are still waiting, not necessarily knowing how to attack the problem. Tourism is a multidisciplinary and complex field of activity, its transversality of action makes it a complicated whole to understand and manage.

Close to and dependent on local governance, tourism tends to be easily understood through the personal experience of an elected official or a local official who, if I may allow myself the parallel with events, sees in the organization made for the school penny fair the same work as for a music festival welcoming artists of international stature.

However, tools and techniques evolve with the world and technicians in the field of Tourism have weapons that allow them to offer the client advantages and an enhanced knowledge of their territory.

In short, everything is there to make Tourism a field of innovation and cutting-edge in terms of marketing today. But local governance systems do not have the same responsiveness as destination customers and are still struggling to evolve in their direction or take them into consideration. However, it is these same governments that own their destination brands.

We must therefore ask ourselves the questions of how did we get here? What makes tourism at this stage today? The history of Tourism is vast and allows us to understand a lot of things, notably the fact that it was not born in 1963-64 with the Neige and Littoral plans in France.

Since ancient times, people have been moving. Lines of communication developed over the centuries; between military or liturgical traces, there are numerous roads so that everyone can move around in a world that is only getting closer.

The World Tourism Organization defines Tourism as: “Tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon that involves the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or professional purposes or for business.»[1]. These words devoid of emotion are a beautiful scientific definition of tourist activity but, just like Marc Boyer, we will rather remember that of tourism by Emile Littré in 1873: “It is said of travelers who only travel through foreign countries out of curiosity and idleness, who make a kind of tour in countries usually visited by their compatriots. It is said especially of English travelers in France, Switzerland and Italy[2]. This word which has its roots in the English “Grand Tour of Europe”, itself inherited from the French “Tour”, a journey with a notion of circular or circuit, i.e. several stages.

Generalized by the English aristocracy during the 17th century, tourism aimed to introduce the world to these English youth who generally left for Germany or Italy on their "Grand Tour of Europe" and each time, they had to cross France, or worse, pass through the Alps[3].

Even if the first traces of crossing the Alps are numerous, history will especially remember those of Hannibal during the second Punic war who, in 218 BC, moved quickly from Spain towards Italy crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps to invade the Romans. Weaker on the maritime terrain than the army of Rome, Hannibal decided to go by land and cross the Alpine passes with some 38,000 infantrymen, 8,000 horsemen and 37 war elephants[4]. It was therefore via the Col du Montcenis or that of Montgenèvre that he opened a route of communication, not without losing between 3,000 and 20,000 men during the crossing[5]. These paths will then be generalized in numerous journeys to cross the Alps over the centuries even if the Alps will not be tamed until the 18th century.

It was not until 1740 that these passages of “Grand Tour” which became “Tourists” became widespread after an Age of Enlightenment filled with romantic adjectives. New travel themes are multiplying in which the mountain takes an increasingly important place. These “Horrible Mountains” take on their full importance from the stories of Windham and Pockoke in 1741 and the invention of the myth of Mont Blanc, until then painted from afar by the romantics of the time. Seaside resorts and their long promenades facing the seas at high tide are also taking pride of place in growing tourism. Only the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea are neglected in these new tourist practices.

But from the last third of the 18th century, British medicine quickly sold the merits of southern winter. In Nice and Hyères, rich Europeans relax from October to April for health needs. It was in the 19th century that the Mediterranean coast took off with the development of new cities like Cannes, Menton, Grasse and San Remo, which the English quickly called French Riviera, the equivalent of the Côte d'Azur in French. This name comes from the author Stephen Liégeard in 1887. Especially since part of this coast became French after the duchy of Savoy was attached to France. In the South-West, it will also be the time of the advent of Pau and Arcachon, from Algiers to eastern Egypt via Estoril or Madeira.

The growth of tourism will no longer be stopped and the universal exhibitions will allow the 19th century to move from elite tourism to true mass tourism which will establish London and Paris as the most visited cities in the world.

As for winter sports, they were truly born with the Army. The political-military context specific to the end of the 19th century convinced the government of the Third Republic that we must protect our borders. This is how the comparative experiences between snowshoes and skis for the movement of Alpine troops were the subject of a detailed report by Captain Clerc (1902) in which he demonstrated all the interest that would be in equipping them with skis like Colonel Zavarotti's Alpini (Ballu, 1981-1988). “The snow bicycle” first emerged as an instrument for exploring a mountain hitherto hostile in winter and as a patriotic weapon for the defense of the steepest borders. The Ministry of War then supported the idea of ​​creating a military ski school in Briançon. The 159th Ski School will largely contribute, from 1904, to the propagation of skiing and the manufacture of equipment, while benefiting from the active support of the French Alpine Club and the advice of some Norwegian military instructors. The effort of the military and the “Alpinists” resulted in the organization of the first international winter sports competition at Montgenèvre from February 10 to 12, 1907, in front of a considerable crowd (more than 3,000 people, while at the time Briançon had barely more than 6,000 inhabitants). [6]

Seventeen years before the first Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, Montgenèvre will be the first French ski resort[7].

In less than two centuries, the major historic European tourist sites were then designed, only the Second World War slowed down the development of tourism - although Pierre Montaz, in "11 Americans fell from the sky", describes his work in the Alpe d'Huez ski resort for German officers[8] - and marked an important stage between traditional tourism and the new mass tourism that we know today.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[1] UNWTO - Comprendre le tourisme : Glossaire de base – www. nwto.org

[2] Émile Littré (1873), Dictionnaire de la langue française

[3] BOYER, Marc. Histoire générale du tourisme du XVIe au XXIe siècle. Editions L'Harmattan, 2005.

[4] Lancel 1995, p. 60.

[5] Richard Bedser, Hannibal V Rome, BBC et Atlantic Productions, Londres, 2005

[6] Arnaud Pierre. Olympisme et sports d'hiver : Les retombées des Jeux Olympiques d'hiver de Chamonix 1924. In: Revue de géographie alpine, tome 79, n°3, 1991.

[7] Guy Hermitte, Montgenèvre : Un siècle de l'histoire Du Ski De 1907 A 2007

[8] Pierre Montaz, Onze Américains tombés du ciel - 1994