For a long time, Laëtitia totally rejected the simple idea of spending her holidays in the north of France. For her, the coast of Pas-de-Calais and its kilometers of coastline evoked only grey, rain, wind and the freshness of the sea. Then, by dint of hearing the testimonies of friends or acquaintances Captivated by the immense expanses of white sand offered by the Côte d’Opale, she decided to rent a room with locals in the town of Rety, located halfway between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Calais. “Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. For me, vacation was the South, 30°C in the shade and the Mediterranean,” she recalls. But upon her arrival, in 2021, the young woman says she was seduced by the diversity of the landscapes and the kindness of her hosts. “For nothing in the world will I go back to the South, stick to the masses of tourists and lay my towel against that of the neighbor,” she concludes.
According to Rinaldo Hoarau, her Airbnb host, Laëtitia is far from the only one to have rediscovered the northern coasts for her summer holidays. Ten years ago, it was mainly a transient clientele or British travellers, who came to rest before taking the Channel Tunnel. The surrounding hotels, “filled with the police” who came to manage the migration crisis in Calais, no longer really made people dream. “But times have changed, and the image of the Côte d’Opale has been completely transformed. The post-Covid period has blown up the region,” said this forty-year-old. For three years, it has been welcoming more and more families who settle for several days, travelers looking for large spaces and investors attracted by second homes more affordable than on the Côte d’Azur or the facade Atlantic. “Three quarters of people tell us that they would never have thought they would come on vacation to Pas-de-Calais. But here, they find ice cream for 2.50 euros and space on the beach, without toasting under 43°C”, he summarizes.
Exponential success
The figures prove him right: according to a study published in mid-May by the online rental sites Abritel and Expedia, Pas-de-Calais is the French department which has seen the largest increase in the number of reservations in one year for months of July and August, with 25% more searches compared to 2022. The Abritel site even ranks the department as the trendiest destination for this summer, ahead of the Manche, Finistère, Puy-de-Dôme and even the Vosges. A phenomenon that is confirmed again on last-minute bookings in the heart of summer: in a study published on July 24, Abritel confirms that searches for vacation rentals in Pas-de-Calais have increased by an average of 30 % over the first two weeks of July, compared to the same period last month. “For a long time, our region was seen as a territory undergoing conversion, associated with mines and large textile industries… This vision is changing, particularly in the context of the development of social and environmental concerns in the choice of tourist destinations” , estimates Daniel Fasquelle, president of the Hauts-de-France regional tourism committee.
According to Abritel, the prices of a rental there would indeed be 30 to 50% lower than those offered in the south of France. “And at the same time, the department is one of those that suffers the least from the heat wave: these two factors help to explain the growing interest in the region, which has only increased over the past twenty years”, decrypts Xavier Rousselou, spokesperson for Expedia. Throughout the Côte d’Opale, tourism specialists confirm this exponential success: in the first half of 2023, the Boulonnais Tourist Office observed a 31% increase in attendance compared to 2022, with “impressive” peaks during May weekends or school holidays and a 30% increase in turnover for local shops between 2022 and 2023. At the Calais Côte d’Opale Tourist Office, the figures are even more telling: + 45% of attendance between 2021 and 2022, with accommodation and campsites “booked weeks in advance, and almost full throughout the summer period”.
Calais bashing
A very popular destination at the beginning of the 20th century for its beaches, its balneotherapy establishments and its geographical location – halfway between Paris, London and Brussels -, the Côte d’Opale nevertheless suffered for a long time from a bad reputation, and forgotten by vacationers over the decades. “The First World War, first of all, was very harmful for the region: its dunes became training camps for the English, the seaside resorts were transformed into hospitals, many buildings were destroyed”, recalls Jean -Michel Dewailly, geographer specializing in the northern coast and honorary professor at the universities of Lille and Lyon. In the interwar period and then from the 1950s, the fashion for tanning and the desire for sunshine gradually prevailed over the washed-out skies of Pas-de-Calais. The development of motorways, private cars and high-speed lines, coupled with the arrival of paid holidays, encourage this exodus to the Mediterranean, which has become the rallying point for a large majority of French holidaymakers.
“In the Hauts-de-France, a more industrialized and underprivileged region, more popular local tourism is developing, which attracts a less well-off clientele. This tourism did not have very good press compared to the new resorts of La Grande-Motte or of the Côte d’Azur”, describes Jean-Michel Dewailly. However, the geographer specifies that the region has always attracted a handful of wealthy holidaymakers, welcoming the second homes of large families from the North or bosses of the textile and mining industry, while remaining a privileged vacation spot for Belgian customers. , German, British and Parisian. “You can also find this link in the very name of certain municipalities, such as Le Touquet Paris-Plage”, underlines the geographer, recalling that on the Côte d’Opale, “a certain social mixture has always existed”.
In the early 2000s, the migration crisis and the media coverage of the famous “jungle” of Calais permanently tarnished the reputation of the Côte d’Opale. “It hurt us a lot: at the time, travelers who came for work, for example, called the tourist office upstream to find out if they would be safe to go to a restaurant!”, recalls, annoyed , the deputy mayor of Calais in charge of the territory Pascal Pestre. The man regrets a “Calais bashing”, which has long damaged the image of his city. “Beyond that, there have always been clichés about the North: it may seem silly, but the film Welcome to the Ch’tis did not necessarily help us on the subject. No, there is not a curtain of rain when you arrive in Pas-de-Calais!”, insists with a laugh Pierre-Edouard Waquet, president of a hotel club and director of several establishments in the city center of Dunkirk.
“Background work”
To make people forget the preconceptions of holidaymakers, some elected officials from the Côte d’Opale have opted for a total overhaul of the image of their towns. In Dunkirk, for example, the dike has been completely renovated since 2017, with terraces on the sand, belvederes and new paving for a budget “of around 10 million euros”, according to the deputy mayor in charge of tourism Marjorie Eloy. Since 2014, a series of projects have gradually been put in place to develop the town’s tourist appeal: creation of the cultural festival Bonne Aventure – which now brings in more than 50,000 visitors at the start of the summer -, organization of the kitesurfing world cup next August, “cinema cell” to promote the filming of films or clips within the city, free public transport… “It was a lot of work, but it works: between 2019 and 2021 , we are seeing a 60% increase in the occupancy rate in hotels in Dunkirk”, underlines Marjorie Eloy.
Same results on the side of Calais, where the seafront has been completely renovated for an investment of 35 million euros, according to Pascal Pestre. To support the urban renewal of the city, the town hall also paid 6 million euros for the Dragon of Calais, a mechanical attraction created by the artist François Delarozière and inaugurated in 2019. The bet is a winner: in 2022, the machine has attracted nearly a million visitors, for economic benefits estimated at more than 15.2 million euros by the Hauts-de-France Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which issued a report on the subject in May 2023. “The idea of these initiatives was to restore the coast’s letters of nobility. We don’t want to do bling-bling, but to play with our assets to attract families and a clientele who did not know our coasts”, emphasizes Pascal Pestre.
The charm worked for Céline, a 39-year-old stay-at-home mother who, before discovering Pas-de-Calais during the Covid, did not go on vacation. Originally from Avesnois, she returns every summer to see Caps Gris-Nez and Blanc-Nez, majestic cliffs that flow into the North Sea and have been labeled Grands sites de France since 2011. “Here, everything is cheaper than elsewhere : in a period when gasoline costs an arm, it allows us to change our minds in a few hours by car”, she testifies. This summer, friends invited her to the Nîmes area, where the weather was near 40°C in early July. The 30-year-old refused, preferring the immense expanse of sand at Merlimont-Plage, a few kilometers from Berck.