After two blank years due to Covid-19, tourists are well and truly back at Mont-Saint-Michel.
In the small alleys of the Marvel, more than 15,000 visitors paraded daily between August 8 and 22.
A peak in attendance was even reached on August 18 with the presence of 36,000 people on the rock.
“It's the record day of the season,” says Hervé Bierjon, director of the tourist office.
That day, Mont-Saint-Michel received in one day the equivalent of the population of a city like Auxerre or La Ciotat.
"We used the word record: according to some traders from Mons, it had been decades since we had seen so many people simultaneously and over such a short period," adds Hervé Bierjon.
Better to focus on other periods
This record may however raise questions about the tourist overcrowding of the monument, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“We understand the phenomenon of attractiveness and that our visitors do not necessarily have the choice of coming at other times.
In absolute terms, it doesn't offer satisfaction for anyone, because people are waiting, stalling, traders don't always have the staff to be able to provide quality service to each of the visitors, ”he says.
"The streets are a little congested: there is a saturation effect which is not very satisfactory for anyone", he acknowledges, wishing "to encourage visitors to favor other periods or times of the day which are a little less frequented.
In winter, attendance is around 1,000 to 1,500 people per day.
In 2019, the last reference year due to the years 2020 and 2021 marked by the pandemic, some 2,410,000 people went to Mont-Saint-Michel.
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