It is not only on the tourist map of France that Étretat (Seine-Maritime) takes the lion's share. Because despite its 1,244 inhabitants, the small town on the Normandy coast is one of the stars of the web, in particular its Wikipedia page, which is consulted every day on average by 454 people, according to a recent study by the Nouvelles Margins firm over a period of two years covering a total of 1,600 small French municipalities.
But it is above all the average consultations compared to its number of inhabitants between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2022 which places it on the first step of the podium. Because, as the study indicates: “Compared to their overall population, small French towns receive an average of 6.4 visits per resident over the observation period, compared to only 5.6 for a medium-sized town (…) and 2.5 for the 22 metropolises.” So, with a figure of 266.4 clicks per inhabitant, Étretat is light years away from villages of comparable size, and even further from medium-sized towns and metropolises.
For Éric Baudet, one of the managers of the Le Havre-Etretat-Normandie Tourism office, this result is only half a surprise: “It only reinforces what we already know about the attractiveness of Étretat, which is both an asset and a difficulty in relation to the reception capacities of this exceptional site. »
As the study shows, it is not just the tourist factor that comes into play. Television exposure thanks to a film or series, an event like the Tour de France or a spotlight like Stéphane Bern and his “French favorite village” can create a peak in attendance which has effects over time. Netflix and its “Lupin” are not for nothing if the site reached 1.5 million visitors last year. But, in Étretat, these peaks add to an international celebrity which has few equals in France.
“We have not communicated about Étretat during the summer for several years. Even on our Instagram account, we don't publish. We are starting again for the late season in order to show that the village lives throughout the year,” continues Éric Baudet, who has recently seen a proliferation of topics devoted to overtourism which take over the most famous cliffs of the Alabaster coast as an example. “In the long term, it can have a negative effect. We therefore try to pass messages on good behavior as a tourist, on advice on safety along hiking trails or on the beach. It's a delicate balance to find. »
