Q & A

Subject: Tourisme verte et tourisme blue.

Question: I would like any information you can give me on countryside tourism and sea tourism in France. It is part of a project i am doing. I wish to know of any ecological effects tourism has in France as well as financial ones etc. Many thanks.

Answer: Here is what I can tell you in general about tourism in France, I don’t know if it is what you are looking for. The French government in general has tried to make France tourist friendly, as much as the French people will let them. A small example of this would be that you could go to just about every town in France and find a postcard of that town. Also, and this applies to countryside tourism, farmers that have a bed and breakfasts pay less in taxes than a hotel does. Instead of having their customers to pay 20% sales tax on rooms as a hotel does, a farmer, or someone that has a minimum number of cattle, sheep or some other type of animal only has their customers pay 5% sales tax. This is done on purpose to help small farmers or others, the 15% different is kept by the farmer. I have in-laws that have a B & B and because of this tax break of sorts it really helps them get by.

My general feeling is that the French government has made an investment in tourism. I don’t have any fact to back up this statement but the way that things work in France is that nothing economic can happen without a government subsidy. I think that French cities, towns and the countryside are seen as a kind of natural resource that must be protected but also made open to be seen. As with the example of postcards most towns have tourist office that are stocked full of local written guides.

Lastly tourists are everywhere in France, I live in Strasbourg and the tour busses just roll in every day all day, mostly coming from Germany. When I was in Paris I spent some nights working across for the Eiffel Tower and just about every few minuets a bus would pull up and left off tourist to photograph it. This went on long into the night.

As for the ecological effects of tourism I can’t comment, what I can say is that France seems to be a very clean country, the gutters in Paris are cleaned with water but it would not surprise me that with so many people coming to France there is not a negative ecological effect. I hope this helps you, if not let me know.