On the A25 motorway and along the national road 225, the brand new signs can only catch the eye of motorists. A few kilometers from the Côte d’Opale, on the axis linking Dunkirk and Lille, a series of acronyms printed on a white background indicate to drivers the direction of Bergues, which has just been labeled a stopover village – a first for a municipality of Hauts-de-France. This state label, awarded by the Ministry of Ecological Transition since the beginning of the 2000s, informs travelers that by stopping in this town of just over 5,000 inhabitants, they will be able to find restaurants, hotels or guest rooms, a motorhome area, sales of regional products and even a tourist office allowing them to visit the surroundings. All of this in a much more gleaming setting than the gray and impersonal car parks of classic motorway service areas, which are often crowded and in which the price of the unpopular triangle sandwich makes more than one traveler jump.
This precious title, distributed to 76 municipalities for twenty years, is a guarantee of success for the small forgotten villages that line our motorways. A little over a month after being awarded the stopover village label, the deputy mayor of Bergues in charge of tourism Marc Bourel has already noted a 20% increase in the number of visitors compared to the same period. last year. “Some traders saw the difference in their attendance the day after the installation of the panels!” Rejoices the elected official, even referring to “an exceptional tourist season”. “Our city was already quite dynamic, so I wouldn’t call it a lifeline either… But it’s a huge plus, it has to be said,” he adds. For Jean-Pierre Debailleul, owner of a restaurant, a guest house and several lodgings in the city center, this new visibility is even worth “all the advertising campaigns in the world”. After the Covid years and the slow reopening of his establishments, he welcomes the arrival of new tourists, who all or almost all tell him about the famous signs seen on the highway. “The French know the village-stopover brand, they know that it is a guarantee of quality. In a few months, I think the impact on my turnover could be monstrous”, he believes.
According to the French Federation of villages-steps, the labeling of a municipality would allow an average increase of 30% in the turnover of the businesses concerned. In some villages, the label has even been a victim of its own success. “It has happened that users have described crowded alleys to us, where it had become difficult to park. In this case, the municipality is reworking its reception capacities to be able to adapt to this new attendance”, describes Béatrice Coiffard, director of the French Federation of Stopover Villages. Some merchants, for their part, have also had to modify their catering offers, by always offering more sandwiches or salads to take away, or even review their opening hours. In the town of Crevin, in Ille-et-Vilaine, which became a stopover village in July 2019, Maryvonne Faugeres was the first to open her restaurant all summer. “When I moved in June 2019, exactly one month before the certification, all my colleagues advised me to close and go on vacation. They told me that summer was dead… Three weeks later, my number of customers was exploding,” she says. Four years later, his pizzeria is always full. “At least a third of the people I serve come thanks to the stopover village. I know what time I start, never when I finish!”, She concludes happily before hanging up, overwhelmed on this Monday at the end of August.
“A second wind for our city”
Awarded for five years, the label is however not so easy to obtain. On average, only five municipalities receive the coveted title each year – out of “20 to 50 applications depending on the year”, according to Béatrice Coiffard. To do this, applicants must meet a series of criteria, first and foremost the location – the municipality must be located less than five kilometers or five minutes from a non-conceded national axis -, and the number of its inhabitants – less than 5,000. Access to parking spaces, maintained sanitary facilities accessible to people with reduced mobility, the provision of a camper van reception area, picnic tables and a playground for children, a traditional catering establishment with a sufficient number of covers and at least one hotel accommodation are also part of the criteria, as is the mandatory presence of food shops, bakeries, grocery stores or cafés, and local shops such as a press house or a pharmacy. Above all, these services must be open throughout the year, and in particular during tourist periods.
“It was a real substantive work: we had to convince the traders of the usefulness of the approach, fill out a file, pass an oral presentation in front of the representatives of the ministry and the Federation”, testifies Marc Bourel. To finalize its membership, the municipality of Bergues also had to free itself of “a little more than 5,000 euros” in membership fees (i.e. 1.44 euros per inhabitant) which will be, according to the elected official, ” quickly amortized”. “It’s well worth it”, can already testify Bertrand Ollivier, mayor of Joinville, a small town of 2,300 inhabitants in Haute-Marne. Labeled ten years ago, then crowned the favorite stopover village of the French for the year 2022, Joinville has since benefited from a constantly increasing number of tourists. “You now have to book to find space at the restaurant, our motorhome stopover is full all year round, locals have come to rediscover the city, we attract city dwellers who are interested in country life”, says the mayor.
Sébastien Péjou, deputy mayor of the municipality of Magnac-Bourg (Haute-Vienne), holder of the title for the year 2023, confirms. According to him, the municipal campsite which was struggling to fill up is now “almost full” during certain weekends, the project to deploy charging stations for electric cars has been accelerated, as has that of the creation of a medical center, and the town hall telephone keeps ringing for information on the facilities available in town. L’Express was also able to note that the title of “preferred stopover village of the French” was quickly integrated into the automatic recording of the switchboard’s answering machine. “Winning this competition was a second wind for our city: it really allowed us to revive interest in Magnac-Bourg”, assures Sébastien Péjou. Like the other labeled municipalities, his city must, every five years, present its report to the Federation of villages-steps. If certain commitments have not been respected, the title may be suspended. The extremely rare scenario has only happened “a few times”, according to Béatrice Coiffard, who indicates that the Federation is then working with the municipalities concerned to “quickly resolve the problem identified”. In the meantime, the network continues to expand: by 2025, a total of 80 municipalities could be labeled in the territory.