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Abstract : The development of tourism in rural areas has for many years been at the centre of debate over countryside planning in France. Rural tourism is seen as an activity which could bring new life to local economies and social structures currently experiencing difficulties by providing them with a new base for sustainable local development while at the same time contributing to agricultural diversification. Tourism should also constitute an important element in redefining spatial structures for planning purposes. However, when the area is not well known or has no real tradition of tourism, the supply (of the tourism product) is expressed within rigid, inappropriate politico-administrative structures without any real effort to understand demand. In the final analysis, tourism organisers use national networks and tourism depends more on the quality of products and their labelling than on the places underlying tourist interest in a region. Constrained by the rather narrow approach of its promoters, the development of rural tourism in France would appear to be far from reaching its objectives.
Pierre Vitte (Thu,) studied this question.