Local elected officials who suggest a future post of Minister of Sports, the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, generally opposes that taking everything, he would rather see himself as Minister of Tourism. In this month of July, while waiting for the portfolio to exist one day, Mr. Prudhomme has taken a step ahead: he is touring the stage cities of the Tour … without the Tour. The race was postponed to September (departure on August 29 in Nice) and, for the territories it crosses, the tourist and media spinoffs will not be the same.
This is particularly the case for mountain resorts, which maintain a special relationship of interdependence with the Tour. The Tour is “The icing on the cake”, plays down Thierry Monin, mayor of Méribel (Savoie), above all relieved that the race has not been canceled.
The very chic Tarentaise resort was to host, on July 15, its first arrival at the Tour since 1973. It will finally be September 16, and it won’t be very serious, according to Mr. Monin: “We were not counting solely on this: the resort is well attended between July 15 and August 15, with golf and mountain activities. We already have a little more people than last year. “ Everything is going so well that the station has not even thought of renegotiating the package paid to Amaury Sport Organization to accommodate the arrival, generally around 120,000 euros excluding tax.
In September, he promises, there will still be a village festival and, he hopes, Belgians and Dutch fans of the Tour de France; they will just be a little older. And the hotels will still have to house the teams, the race organization and the media.
“Competition with the coast and the countryside”
For traders, however, the postponement is not a detail. France Bleu observes that certain hotels will have closed at the end of August in this altitude station where the summer season is short. And that reopening for a handful of days is not a given. The firm G2A, specialist in tourist frequentation in the mountains, notes that two months before the deadline, “Does not overflow with reservations in mid-September” in the places where the Tour will take place.
“Wherever we see the Tour de France pass, and all the more so if it is coupled with L’Etape du Tour [la plus grande épreuve cyclosportive du monde], we normally see big peaks in attendance, recalls Gilles Revial, director of G2A. Beyond the motorhomes, there are people who take accommodation for three days or a week, in a place which allows two or three stages to pass. “
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