Études Caribéennes ()

Tourisme de masse et tourisme responsable en période de crise paysagère : le canal du Midi (France)

  • Patrice Ballester

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4000/etudescaribeennes.7566
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 31

Abstract

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Since the seventeenth century, the canal du Midi known conflicts of use and a variety of landscapes. Currently, Waterways of France (VNF) as the local population and tourists are confronted with a major landscape and environmental crisis. The disappearance of the old plane because of the fungus and the epidemic of colored canker is inevitable. This crisis disrupts levels of information and perception of a tourist area of prime importance for France with an inscription on the World Heritage by UNESCO in 1996. Trees are a marker of landscape identity and tourist representations very strong. From unprecedented archival research on the changing landscape and action actors, coupled with fieldwork between 2008 and 2013 on the behavior of tourists and walkers, our results show that the action of protection and conservation of the landscape fit into a renewed relationship between mass tourism and alternative tourism alliance, they become interdependent. Communication and environmental education to the public on the state of nature of this site are also included in an action to turn its resilient and sustainable development, the ambivalences of user behavior in their vision of a hybrid attraction are observed.

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