With global warming, heat waves are going to be longer, more frequent and more intense, leading to an increased risk of drought and fires during these months which see holidaymakers flocking to the South.
“Sea, sex and sun” for tourists. But for those who house them, advise them, occupy them and serve them, the fashionable refrain sounds much less glamorous: flexibility, resilience and uncertainty. OWherever they work, tourism professionals increasingly have to deal with the consequences of climate change and in particular heat waves, the risk of fires and water restrictions linked to drought. Many territories, sometimes deprived of water for many months, are in a crisis situation, as the summer tourist season begins.
In almost all of the Pyrénées-Orientales, a department particularly affected this year, the filling of individual swimming pools is prohibited. (in PDF). Fortunately for local tourism, the filling of pools for collective use is still authorized, under conditions. Jacuzzis and spas can also continue to operate if they are connected to “a system of total recovery and reuse of water”.
“Year I of a new tourism”
These restrictions, Brice Sannac, owner of the Elmes hotel-spa, in Banyuls-sur-Mer, had already anticipated them. To make a new leap forward towards sobriety in water, the four-star establishment, housed between the sea and the vineyards on the hillside, has spent “just over 10,000 euros”. A sum that has made it possible to redirect the filtering water from the basins “so that every drop used for leisure serves a second time”to cover the swimming pools at night “to prevent evaporation”, or to lower the water level of the washing machines.
“In the hotel industry, before being hosts, we are ‘bricol’tout’. We know how to react quickly”, explains the 30-year-old, who had already, for ecological reasons, equipped the building with shutters and chose for the exterior the shade of endemic trees that consume little water. President of the departmental section of the Union of trades and hotel industries (Umih66), Brice Sannac concedes that these new imperatives “have made a few grumble, but this management as a good father has been understood and accepted by the vast majority of professionals in the sector”he assures. “A small contribution to the war effort” to better manage the water resource which, according to him, goes in the direction of history. Moreover, this season marks, according to him, “Year I of a new tourism”.
“Now we have to go further. I no longer want drinking water to go into the toilets. What we need is an endowment fund to make the region a laboratory for these new practices. .”
Brice Sannac, owner of a hotel-spa in the Pyrénées-Orientalesat franceinfo
In the meantime, in consultation with the public authorities and the Chamber of Agriculture, filter water from swimming pools and spas is made available to operators or town halls, for example to clean public spaces. “We are not in competition. It is useless to have beautiful hotels if the municipalities cannot clean the streets!” In May, at Salses-le-Château, a few kilometers north of Perpignan, the managers of a campsite donated to the firefighters cubic meters which stagnated in the swimming pool, intended for emptying. This gesture then unprecedented could quickly become a symbol of good practices, while outdoor establishments hope to reduce their water consumption by up to 30%.
No water, but cycling
Where the vagaries of the climate have already struck, adaptation is necessary in pain. In her Drôme campsite, ideally located on the banks of the river, Nathalie Vernay had to lay off the staff in charge of a canoeing activity, forced last summer by the low flow of the river. This year, it has assigned only one full-time seasonal worker to this mission. “It is too early to know how the situation will evolve”explains the owner, reasonably optimistic after the late spring rains. “With only one course open in the summer of 2022, we experienced a big drop in turnover. It has become even more difficult to anticipate. Everything is done at the last minute.”
“If you are a company that offers a single type of offer, depending on the quantity and quality of water in a lake or a river, diversifying your activity is a matter of survival”, sums up Guillaume Cromer, president of ID-Tourisme and treasurer of the network Actors of sustainable tourism. Gold, this question of the adaptation of the tourism and leisure sector to climate change is barely emerging. “Around the lake of Serre-Ponçon [dans les Hautes-Alpes], the mixed union has initiated a reflection on the support tools for professionals. Inevitably, when the beach recedes 15 meters, it is not good for boating”he continues. “This example was very publicized last summer, but it already exists everywhere: what do you do when there are too many mosquitoes in the Camargue? That the parasites attack the forests? That you can’t get out at noon because it’s 40°C in the shade?”
In the Verdon, a popular destination for its aquatic activities, the drought of 2022 had its small effect on local entrepreneurs. “With service providers who have been limited in their activity, bicycle offers have developed everywhere”, explains Malo Le Meil, organizer of the Verdon by bike within the association Leisure Cycling Provence. “For a service provider who prefers rafting, for example, having a few bikes means that they always have something to offer customers. Even service providers who have offers for quad biking tell us that they now offer cycling instead in the summer. , because it is too hot”, he adds.
Summer, “off season”?
Mountain guide based in Apt (Vaucluse), Olivier Léonard saw the demand for day hikes collapse in summer in a few years. “We are developing ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ offers. More and more, the prefects are issuing orders to close mountain ranges for the day or the afternoon, so we leave earlier in the morning. is more pleasant for everyone anyway”, notes the guide, who also suggests that hikers climb under the stars. A shift in hours, but also in seasons: tourists now flock to the end of May or the beginning of October, when the conditions are optimal. The professional thus considers that the seasonal vision that still dominates in the institutions in charge of tourism is “outdated”.
“We have requests from groups of hikers until mid-November. That didn’t happen ten years ago. I’m asked in December, January… And summer is almost over. It’s becoming an off season for me in the Luberon.”
Olivier Léonard, mountain guideat franceinfo
Higher up, tourism change is, like climate change, even more marked, explains geomorphologist Ludovic Ravanel, CNRS research director and member of the Company of High Mountain Guides. “A few years ago, we sold summits: Mont Blanc, Mont Rose, the Matterhorn… Now, a practice driven by young guides consists of selling ‘experiences’. If the conditions are good, that can be considered overnight. But a tourist who comes from August 10 to 15, no guide can guarantee him in advance that he will have access to such and such a thing.” Here, the melting of glaciers and permafrost makes the practice increasingly dangerous. So guides take vacations in the summer. “In the 1980s or 1990s, it was unimaginable. It was the heart of the season.”
However, the mountains are increasingly popular with holidaymakers looking for a bit of fresh air and a “nature” destination. “A shift is taking place slowly”, remarks the geographer Sylvie Clarimont, specialist in the interactions between climate and tourism at the University of Pau. “We are going back to the first forms of tourism in the 19th century, when the elite went to the sea in winter and to the mountains in summer, for hydrotherapy.” So much so that the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departmental council has set up a “Successful hiking” program to make this new summer public aware of the habits and customs of the practice and the territory.
Stigmatized departments
Based in Balizac, in Gironde, Manu Obry notably offers bivouacs in the trees. But he was unable to work throughout the summer of 2022 because part of his “office” went up in smoke in the fires that ravaged the department. In recent weeks, violent storms have jeopardized this part of its supply, which is destined to decline in the long term. “It’s too random. Economically, it’s not going well. For months, it’s reservation, cancellation, reservation, cancellation…”
His fear now: that the public authorities will further restrict access to the forest, in the name of a risk that these nature professionals are precisely in the best position to assess. “That a prefectural decision applies indiscriminately because there is a heat wave alert and prevents me from working, I who am every day of the year in the forest, it is difficult to manage”he laments, increasingly attentive to the need to share the basics of protecting this ecosystem.
These professionals also fear that the media exposure of the difficulties encountered in their territory will deter customers. “The way things are presented stigmatizes an entire department”, regrets Brice Sannac, the hotelier of the Pyrénées-Orientales.
“I was called to ask if there was water in the pool. Of course there is. We are doing our part, but the villages without water are isolated and at the other end of the department. “
Brice Sannac, owner of a hotel-spa in the Pyrénées-Orientalesat franceinfo
In the Alpes-Maritimes, Lionel Richard, a guide specializing in canyoning and via ferrata, makes a similar observation: “there is a lot of confusion… A neighbor asked me if there was water in the canyon. Even during the worst of the drought last year, some places remained quite passable We know where to go, it’s our job.” And in the Gorges du Verdon or at the Serre-Ponçon lake, the professionals insist: the drought of 2022 has not transformed these corners of paradise into an arid desert. At least not yet.