There are crowds in the summer in the Pyrénées-Orientales. A flagship destination for summer holidays, the department is crowded all season long, at sea and in the mountains. But a few weeks before the big departures, hotel professionals are worried. Reservations are not as flourishing as in previous years in Roussillon. For the spokespersons for tourism in the department, it is the fault of the overmediatization of the extreme drought, which the Pyrénées-Orientales are facing.
The giant fire of Cerbère, the waterways and the dry taps… This scorching spring, which made the headlines in the media, would have worried some tourists, who planned to take it easy in the area. “We have been suffering from a ‘bashing’ for many weeks”, explains to 20 minutes Brice Sannac, President of the Union of trades in the hotel industry of the Pyrénées-Orientales. This manager of the hotel Les Elmes, in Banyuls-sur-Mer, also points to some misinformation. “The Cerbère fire, it sometimes felt like all the hiking trails had burned down, when it was only a very small part that went up in smoke, he continues. But there are still hundreds of thousands of hectares to discover in the department. And no massif is closed. »
As for the fear of running out of water, Brice Sannac reassures those who have planned to spend their holidays in the Pyrénées-Orientales. “All customers who come will have a normal situation, he assures. Hotels and campsites have their swimming pools. And there is no water rationing, there will be water for the pastis, and ice cubes for the rosé! We have water! The villages whose taps were dry in recent weeks are only “a handful of small towns”, out of around 400, in the department, Brice Sannac points. “These are villages in the Conflent, he explains. On the coastal strip, there is water. Wherever there are hotels and restaurants, there is water. »
“The hotel industry in the Pyrénées-Orientales is the most resilient”
In recent weeks, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, “there have not been that many cancellations”, but “a marked slowdown in reservations”, continues this 33-year-old hotelier. Some customers call the establishments, to reassure themselves. “There is concern, because the press has been unleashed to talk about the crisis. She did her job, of course. But she didn’t go out of her way to say that everything was secured, and that there will be water this summer. »
“It’s unfair, because in the department, professionals work like nowhere else to deal with climatic hazards,” says Brice Sannac. And this, long before the drought caused so much talk. “We even go further than what is asked of us. Today, the hotel industry in the Pyrénées-Orientales is the most resilient, and the greenest in France, he says. Water from swimming pools and spas is collected for farmers. We have water savers. Everywhere. So yes, we cannot clean the terraces with tap water. Well, we clean them by reusing water from wine buckets. »