To avoid too much tourist traffic this summer, the city of Marseille will present a strategic plan next month to regulate the influx of visitors.

The town hall wishes in particular to create new tourist circuits and to privilege, if possible, the quality of the tourists to the quantity.

With the difficulties of traveling abroad linked to the coronavirus health crisis, many French people choose France for their summer vacation.

If the tourist season is approaching, the city of Marseille, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, wishes to limit the influx of tourists in June, July, August and September.

The Marseille city expects an equivalent attendance, or even more than during the summer of 2020. With, as a fear, many inconveniences.

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Create new circuits 

Incivility, noise, non-respect of sanitary distances ... the summer of 2020 did not leave only good memories in the minds of the Marseillais. "The postcard was sometimes a little tainted. We still had a clientele who had difficulty behaving in the right way", regrets Arnaud Payet, manager of a four-star hotel in the Old Port. "An employee was slapped by a customer because she asked him to put on her mask," he said. 

To avoid these scenarios, the town hall wishes to create new tourist circuits to relieve the existing ones.

The city is also considering giving priority to quality over the quantity of tourists in its territory.

"We have to think about the future. Overcrowding is not a solution to fill the cash drawers", explains Laurent Louardi, assistant to tourism at the town hall.

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A strategic plan presented next month

"We risk affecting the image of the city if things do not go well," said the deputy.

A finding shared by the tourist office of the Marseille city, which is however more positive.

"The health protocols are more accepted so there will be much less incivism," said Marc Thepot, who chairs the Marseille tourist office. 

The town hall must present next month a major strategic plan to frame the influx of tourists to Marseille.

Last year, nearly 3.5 million tourists visited the city between July and August 2020, a 60% increase in attendance compared to 2019.