End of season 2016 - sites closing early????
The site where we store our caravan has just let us know that they will be closing two weeks earlier than planned. This is because it's been a very poor season in terms of visitors.
Apparently visitor numbers to France are down by about ten percent this year - and non-French make up the bulk of late season caravanners so apparently lots of sites have decided to close early to cut their losses.
If you are still to go on holiday, do check with your planned sites, that their closing dates are still as you expected, otherwise you could be in for a shock.
Comments
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There are many reasons for a drop of in numbers at sites but one could be the way French officials have treated Brit holidaymakers. They are to stupid to relise that they could be hurting their own people like site owners who have a drop off in numbers because we go elsewhere!
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Sorry DJG, I don't understand. Which officials do you mean? Please explain.
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It is possibly because the of uncertanty of the problems on Mainland Europe,and it has been reported in the "media"that more and more are having "staycations"in the last few years
Also we were coming back through France on a coach a couple of years ago and at one "Payage?" it was swarming with "police",our driver said he had seen it more often,when we got about half a mile further on there was an Aire with several UK registered c/vans and m/vans being "inspected"by the "police"
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Also we were coming back through France on a coach a couple of years ago and at one "Payage?" it was swarming with "police",our driver said he had seen it more often,when we got about half a mile further on there was an Aire with several UK registered c/vans
and m/vans being "inspected"by the "police"It was about that time they were having a clamp down of goods being brought into France from Andora.
peedee
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Also we were coming back through France on a coach a couple of years ago and at one "Payage?" it was swarming with "police",our driver said he had seen it more often,when we got about half a mile further on there was an Aire with several UK registered c/vans
and m/vans being "inspected"by the "police"It was about that time they were having a clamp down of goods being brought into France from Andora.
peedee
...By just the Brits?
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I think the bad weather in the spring plus the Brexit vote have contributed to low visitor numbers to France this year.
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As families leave and go back to school and work the OAPs will be coming out - but all over Europe the OAPs are switching to motorhomes, and choosing to stop overnight in Aires and car parks. French motorhomers in particular never want to pay for camp sites, so stand by for more and more French campsites which are not just closing early, but closing for good.
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I agree JVB. A site we used to use in SW France put in more and more permanent chalets until the whole feel of the campsite changed and a lot of us stopped going.
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Having had several attemps at holidaying in France into October I have never found it to be particularly attractive as its often wet and the lack of all weather pitches can be a bit of a gamble. For anyone making the journey to Spain I am sure there are sufficient Municipals open even if it does mean changing a route that you might have previously taken. Last year we left a campsite in the South of France the day before it closed for the winter at the end of September. I asked why they don't stay open longer and the young lady on reception gave the impression that there were administrative reason that made that difficult, employment law in France is quite complicated I understand.
David
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I think the migrant carry on at Calais didn't help. I for one had enough last year and booked flights instead for 2016, and I know of a few friends and colleagues that gave France a miss for the same reason. My son went to France with his school in July
and their coach got surrounded by a group of migrants threatening and trying to force their way in. The French don't seem to have realised that by not getting a grip on it that the costs from reduced visitor numbers far exceed!!!0 -
Having been in France earlier this year I would have thought the appalling bad weather, the wide spread floods and the problem with getting fuel at one time have all contributed to this year being below the norm. When you then take on the terrorist incidents,
the Brexit vote and the exchange rate its not difficult to see why it might have not been a good year. It won't stop us going to France there is still so much to see and do if the weather is good, we will just go to Spain first if we want to go early (April)
or wait until the middle of May and go then. I hope lots of sites don't close for good.0 -
I think the migrant carry on at Calais didn't help. I for one had enough last year and booked flights instead for 2016, and I know of a few friends and colleagues that gave France a miss for the same reason. My son went to France with his school in July
and their coach got surrounded by a group of migrants threatening and trying to force their way in. The French don't seem to have realised that by not getting a grip on it that the costs from reduced visitor numbers far exceed!!!But there are many more ports that you can use, Dover Calais isn't the only route to France. We never use this route not because of the migrants just the fact that it is where we want to be crossing.
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Sorry DJG, I don't understand. Which officials do you mean? Please explain.
The migrants at Calais! A few hundred appered on the Italian/French border in the south of France and they were gone in a week. But at Calais they are just left as it's only the Brits being affected. Like I said the officials think they are only hurting the Brits but it is the people of Calais that are the ones affected.
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There are no problems whatsoever with French officials if you don't speed or break the law! The passport checking problems lasted only over one long weekend after a terrible terrorist incident in France, and whilst France was (and still is) in a State of Emergency.
We sailed through in early July without any hold up at all, and friends worried about the potential delays and during the 'problems', set off eight hours early from home - and were put on a ferry eight hours early!
These so called 'problems' persist longer on forums than they do in reality.
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I think one of the problems this year have been the 'Calias situation' and also terrorist attacks, like the sort of thing we heard of in Nice. The number of Dutch we saw in France was considerably less than in previous years, but on the site we stayed on
it Italy it was nearly all Dutch. That could be just that particular site, but I did specifically speak to a couple of Dutch families and expressed my surprise at the smaller number of Dutch we saw in France. They both said the same thing - terroist attacks!David
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I think one of the problems this year have been the 'Calias situation' and also terrorist attacks, like the sort of thing we heard of in Nice. The number of Dutch we saw in France was considerably less than in previous years, but on the site we stayed on
it Italy it was nearly all Dutch. That could be just that particular site, but I did specifically speak to a couple of Dutch families and expressed my surprise at the smaller number of Dutch we saw in France. They both said the same thing - terroist attacks!David
And yet we're on a site where the whole clientele, apart from us, is Dutch! No French, no Germans, no other English - mind you we are many miles away from being a potential terrorist target, being in very rural France, in the bottom of a gorge with one
way into the site only!0 -
I think one of the problems this year have been the 'Calias situation' and also terrorist attacks, like the sort of thing we heard of in Nice. The number of Dutch we saw in France was considerably less than in previous years, but on the site we stayed on
it Italy it was nearly all Dutch. That could be just that particular site, but I did specifically speak to a couple of Dutch families and expressed my surprise at the smaller number of Dutch we saw in France. They both said the same thing - terroist attacks!David
And yet we're on a site where the whole clientele, apart from us, is Dutch! No French, no Germans, no other English - mind you we are many miles away from being a potential terrorist target, being in very rural France, in the bottom of a gorge with one
way into the site only!...But then the Dutch are like us go where no other dares to tread
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being in very rural France, in the bottom of a gorge with one way into the site only!
Should be easy to defend in that case
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Hi, Down here in the Lot the local visitor hotspots have been down by 40% due to Chinese, Japanese and American visitors not coming over due to terrorist issues. We have seen a lot of Dutch Belgian and Spanish outits about more than last year. Weather still
very warm in the 30's.0 -
Last year and again this year we visited France, for the first and second time, in over 50 years.
Last year in June and this year in May....4 weeks each time.
We stayed on a few sites and were amazed that some very large sites we visited were virtually empty. Eg.220 pitches on one site and 6 occupied in June. Aires, on the other hand, seemed to be reasonable full.
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Well said Val, I too don't believe the issue is with French officials. Here in Italy the visitor numbers are up by approx 20%, due mainly to the reluctance of holiday makers from Germany and Austria to fly to Turkey or the African states and the French to holiday on the Med. due to the terrorist attacks. There are certainly more Dutch families here too this year. The situation is good for Italy's economy but I'm sure (and hope) the situation in France will be short lived. The country has so much to offer us all.
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We have had 'brushes' with the 'authorities' (the police) on two occasions in thirty-six years. The first time we were stopped by the police just as we left the peage on the autoroute. This was so that the vignerons of the Languedoc could hand us two free
bottles of wine. The second time was when a large agricultural vehicle blocked the road, and we were given a police 'guard' whilst we reversed back, and hand-written directions of an alternative route for our caravan!0
