Morocco, Provence, Martinique, Namibia, Lille, Jamaica, Marseille… So many destinations to discover or rediscover on the occasion of the summer rebroadcasts of “Échappées belles” on France 5. numbers). But how do you determine the location of a beautiful escape? What are the specifications? What criteria determine the menu for a broadcast year?
It all starts with an email sent at the start of the season to the magazine’s employees. “We ask them what destinations make them dream,” says producer Alain Goury. The compilation of each other’s desires sets the trend. Organizational work follows. “You have to distribute these travel ideas in such a way as to have real geographical diversity, as well as a diversity of themes and budget”, he explains. Thus, over the whole of a season, there will be 50% of emissions in France (they generally appear in the top 10 of the best audiences), 25% in Europe and 25% of long-haul. Priority is then given to accessible destinations. “A” beautiful escape “is a place where everyone can go”, summarizes the producer. This immediately eliminates countries with an unstable political situation, or those in which the environment is really hostile.
An essential value: people
“We are not leaving for a great adventure, he continues. What matters is that this journey that we are watching, the viewer can potentially do it, without being an adventurer or a superman”. Obviously, the beauty of the landscapes matters, but it is not enough. “We are not just a magazine that offers beautiful images, including in places that are beautiful and spectacular, he recalls. For us, the essential value is people. What interests us is to meet people who explain to us their attachment to such a country, to such a region, that they share with us their choice of life. »
To be as close as possible to the expectations of the public, the magazine is also interested in trends in the travel market. “This informs us more than it provides us with a guideline, considers Alain Goury. Maybe it’s because we are constantly on this theme, we manage to feel things and we also work a lot with the tourist offices who inform us from time to time of the tremors”. In any case, the program seems to target correctly and give ideas. “Clearly there are people who watch our programs labeled “weekend” and do a bit the same route, they organize their trip by watching “Échappée belle”, underlines Alain Goury. We have some feedback on this subject, but it is especially the people who appear in the show who realize it: the craftsmen, the owners of guest rooms where we see the host settling in… These latter can receive hundreds of phone calls from the evening of the broadcast to reserve a room. We are very prescriptive! »
New beautiful escapes
But, at the dawn of an 18th season, are there still new beautiful escapes to discover? Already, each animator of the program has a personality which makes it possible to explore the same country under a new facet. “They each have different conceptions of travel, you can go back several times to the same place without doing the same show, it’s a big asset”. This is the case with the program broadcast by France 5 on Saturday at 9 p.m. “We must have already done four or five different programs on Morocco, admits Alain Goury. It was even there that we had filmed the first program during the summer of 2006. We have already radiated around Marrakech, then made a number themed around gastronomy. There, it is “from village to village”. This made it possible to show that beyond the major tourist spots, there is still this authentic Morocco. ” Otherwise, at the start of the school year, season 18 will be the opportunity for “Echappées belles” to go for the first time to Côte d’Ivoire, Estonia, or even to the Ubaye valley, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.