Prehistoric art has found its public. The replica of the Cosquer cave, a vast underwater cave in the Mediterranean adorned with masterpieces of prehistoric art, has welcomed some 800,000 visitors since its opening a year ago, a result hailed by its promoters on Tuesday.
“It was an ambition that seemed unreasonable but which was achieved because the project was very beautiful and the professionals who took care of it are extremely efficient,” the president of the Provence-Alpes-Alpes region told the press. French Riviera Renaud Muselier. “It works from 3 to 95 years old. There is the cave that is buried and doomed to disappear and there is an exciting scientific background. (…) There is drawing, art, it’s something that fascinates the collective imagination”, added Geneviève Rossillon, boss of the Kléber Rossillon group, designer and manager of the site.
After the announcement in 1991 of the discovery by the diver Henri Cosquer of this cave more than 30,000 years old in the depths of the creeks of Marseille, the idea of making a replica for a large public quickly germinated. But it took until 2016 for the PACA Region to decide to set it up at the Villa Méditerranée, a modern but unused building, ideally located next to the Mucem, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations, in the heart of the second city of France.
500,000 annual visitors expected at cruising speed
The third replica of a prehistoric cave in France, after those of Lascaux in Dordogne and Chauvet in Ardèche, already made by Kléber Rossillon, opened its doors to the general public on June 4, 2022. For the next few years, Kléber Rossillon still has on the attraction of novelty to attract an equivalent number of visitors, before aiming “at cruising speed” around 500,000 annual admissions within three or four years, specified Geneviève Rossillon. In the coming weeks, the site will also host an “exploration cabin” allowing visitors to travel in virtual reality in the original cave and not in its replica.
“The challenge for us is to develop organizations that ensure that we are not in mass tourism but in organized tourism”, commented Renaud Muselier. “La Grotte Cosquer is fully in line with this,” he said, praising the ease of access to the site, where a reservation is necessary for any visit. “This is what we are developing with the regional tourism committee for the entire region, so as to break down these trips and ensure that the region remains attractive despite the number of visitors”, a- he concluded.