In Mont-Dauphin, the municipality and the Center for National Monuments provided a progress update on the SITEX project – for Exemplary Tourist Sites. Objective: improve tourism development – understand “better welcome”. After a diagnostic phase combining field surveys and workshops, the project enters the operational phase for the next three years.
The finding was already known before the diagnosis phase. This therefore confirmed this state of affairs: today, visitors to Mont-Dauphin are disoriented. Administrator for the Center des Monuments Nationaux in Mont-Dauphin, Isabelle Fouilloy describes the typical feeling of a person who visits the site for the first time.
I think he's a little lost when he gets to the parking lot outside. So the goal is to take him, without him asking a lot of questions, to the entrance to the town and then help him discover Mont-Dauphin as he wishes, either with the CMN on a guided tour, either freely but with help for the visit – signs for example – and go and discover the village and the shops. Today we have too many signs, but too much information kills information. The goal is to remove what is not necessary and to perfect the signage and information.
Isabelle Fouilloy, administrator at the Center for National Monuments
For its part, the municipality ensures that tourist development takes place in harmony with village life, explains Mayor Cyr Piaton.
There is an impact [ndlr : de la fréquentation touristique] on parking, traffic. There is a village at the heart of the monument and it is important that it is in balance. That there is no tourist development disconnected from village life or the harmony that exists in the commune.
Cyr Piaton, mayor of Mont-Dauphin
Improved signage, better reception of cyclists, re-use of paths and creation of hiking and pedestrian paths within the site… traffic and parking play an important role in the project since they largely determine the success of this cohabitation .
The goal is to let [les véhicules] visitors outside, encourage them to explore on foot. The municipality wants there to eventually be one direction of traffic, that is to say entry on the north side for residents and exit on the south side to avoid crossing paths which can be difficult, especially in summer.
Isabelle Fouilloy, administrator at the Center for National Monuments
Other objectives for the mayor of Mont-Dauphin are also to promote “today’s” culture.
There is also an objective which is not to be satisfied with the heritage “the old stones” and the fortifications, to bring back slightly more contemporary aspects, or village life, or the biodiversity aspects which are also very rich on Mont -Dauphin and today set back from the historical heritage.
Cyr Piaton, mayor of Mont-Dauphin
The Guillestrois and Queyras Tourist Office supported the municipality in project engineering, explains director Marie Constensous because it is a “major” site for the community of municipalities, in particular thanks to the UNSECO label. In a logic of diversification, culture is an asset, she continues. The “Country of Art and History” label officially granted this fall to the Community of Communes of Serre-Ponçon and Guillestrois-Queyras should help to rely on culture to develop tourism less focused on winter sports , points out Marie Contensous.
In 2025, directional signage will be deployed. Next will come the information and parking projects depending on the funding found and obtained, specifies Isabelle Fouilloy.
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