Throughout the season, the telephones of tourist offices and town halls have not stopped ringing.
The main question of tourists and locals: how to make a reservation request to access the sites of the Lavezzi Islands, the Aiguilles de Bavella and the Restonica Valley?
Three sites affected by the announcement of the establishment of visitor quotas last June.
A deliberation of the Assembly of Corsica, made public at the beginning of June, validated several measures against mass tourism.
The main one, that of quotas, did not finally see the light of day.
Announcement effect or simple lack of time for an optimal organization?
To discover
Stays in France: weekends, hotels and tailor-made stays from our partners
The deliberation confirmed the establishment of human attendance quotas not exceeding 200,000 visitors in total, between 2022 and 2026 in the Lavezzi Islands, located in the Bouches de Bonifacio nature reserve (Corse-du-Sud).
This jewel of the extreme south of the island welcomes around 300,000 visitors every summer, the report recalls.
During the summer of 2019, 4,500 people visited the scene in a single day.
Read alsoTo regulate tourists, Corsica introduces quotas
2000 people per day
The daily quota was thus to be set at a maximum of 2,000 people simultaneously on the land part of the island.
Visitors were to be allowed to go to the site via a reservation, with residents of Corsica having priority.
Only the staff of the environment office, schoolchildren, groups of supervised students and other environmental associations, having made a landing request, should not be subject to this quota.
But no limitation of the flow of visitors or no reservation system has been put in place for this 2022 season. were indeed limited to preserve Posidonia, as specified in the deliberation.
Contacted by us, the town hall of Bonifacio preferred not to communicate on the subject of quotas.
Read alsoCorsica: five confidential beaches to bask away from the crowds
Act on parking
“Fake news!”
meanwhile got carried away at first Xavier Poli.
The mayor of Corté (Haute-Corse), on which the management of the Restonica valley depends, assures
Le Figaro
that he was not "
informed that quotas or reservations were to be put in place from July
".
"
The deliberation is one thing, its declination is another
" he mocks, wondering "
on what are these quotas based?"
Where to make reservations?
".
Concerning the Restonica valley, the device presented in the deliberation of the Assembly of Corsica should make it possible to reduce the pressure of approximately 80 vehicles on the entrance to the Natural Reserve of the Massif of Monte Ritondu, which includes the high valleys of the Restonica.
But no particular arrangement has been established this year.
In order to obtain the Grand site de France label, “
we had already made an effort to reduce the impact of cars by returning the Grotelle car park to nature.
“Now the place can accommodate 350 cars against about 500 previously.
“
Thinking in terms of people cannot always work.
Each site is different and other initiatives can be introduced outside the quotas so that the flow is not concentrated in the same place at the same time
", supports Xavier Poli who assures that he is still determined to improve the management of tourist attendance. .
At the Aiguilles de Bavella, a mountainous area in the heart of the Corsica regional natural park, there was no question of quotas strictly speaking either, but of a flow regulated by parking management making it possible to "
reduce the volume of the supply , an average of 400 fewer users per day compared to the current activity (1000 people per day)
”, according to the deliberation.
Contacted, the Office of the Environment of Corsica (OEC) has not yet responded to our requests.
This body, some of whose members are elected by the Assembly of Corsica, is responsible for coordinating regional policy on the environment and sustainable development, including overseeing the measures put forward in the report.
Read alsoQuotas, reservations, paid entrance... These places where mass tourism is no longer welcome
Postponed
With our colleagues from
Corse-Matin
, Guy Armanet, president of the OEC, affirms: “
Quotas, we have created de facto by limiting parking.
“Many continuous yellow lines have indeed flowered along the road marking the ban on parking and new car parks have emerged.
If the testimonies of locals and tourists collected by our colleagues point to a lack of communication around these new parking measures, they nevertheless meet the objectives set by the deliberation.
Especially since, according to the inter-municipality of Alta Rocca - a micro-region grouping 18 municipalities in Corse-du-Sud - in
Corse-Matin
, it was "
urgent to act
" and preferable to "
start applying them this season rather than to wait another year
”
.
And Guy Armanet to add: “
We intended to communicate in July, but we experienced delays in deliveries for certain materials (…) so we did not do it.
It is surely a mistake, and we will do it better for next year.
»
