Every year, when the Festival de la Cité arrives, at the same time as the summer season, Carcassonne hoteliers rub their hands, and rightly so. Here’s an overview.
“Every year, the Festival de la Cité de Carcassonne allows us to launch the summer season in the best possible way”. Muriel Brunet, director of the Carcassonne Tourist Office, makes no mistake: for several years, summer tourists have been arriving en masse in Carcassonne at the same time as the Festival de la Cité starts.
The In Festival opened this Friday, June 28 with the concert of the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, while the Off took to the stage of the Jean-Deschamps theater at the start of the week for three wild evenings. “What the Festival brings in terms of attendance is enormous.adds the director of the Tourist Office. And as a result, it leads to a lot of things. There is an increase in the flow of visits to the Office, and when the festival announces new dates, interested people connect to our site to be redirected to hotels to book. For Mika, our site almost exploded!” She also believes that it is the image of the city of Carcassonne which benefits from the Festival’s influence. “It’s truly a virtuous circle. The vast majority of visitors have a good time on this occasion. They talk about it to those around them, and it always brings back more people in the following years.”she adds.
It has become complicated to predict things in this context.
In the heart of the Bastide Saint-Louis, the hotels are almost full. “For our part, we still see that the season is struggling to get going even though bookings are up.says Saidi Liesit, receptionist at the Hôtel de La Bastide. The two summer seasons following covid were excellent. There, we still feel that things have calmed down. People prefer to save. Then we received many more artists. This is a little below our usual standards.”.
According to him, we will have to wait until mid-July to get a real idea of the impact of the Carcassonne Festival on tourist numbers. “In 2024, we are booking at the last minute, there is no longer any question of planning things several months in advance for tourists, especially with the political context, the Olympic Games, and the weather which is becoming capricious”, he adds. A little further away, at the Couvent Hostel, the sound of the bell is identical. “Since the start of the last week of June, reservations have seen a jump. But we don’t know to what extent this is linked to the festival, since we don’t ask visitors why they comewe are told. On the other hand, for July, we have almost no more space”.
