Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He gave me a surprising answer. On the one hand, Juppé's plan was to rejuvenate the
city, he said, not bring in tourism, and that was why it succeeded. The key to good tour-
ism is to do your planning for the people who live there, for the citizens, and if that is
done well, then the visitor will be happy. At the same time, Delaux said he and the mayor
knew from the first days that “very clearly the project will be the foundation for creating
Bordeaux as a tourist destination.”
“I was born here, I've lived here all my life and I know the beauty of Bordeaux, it is
part of me,” he said. “We had been a city of millionaires fascinated by the river and trade
since the eighteenth century, a golden age . . . then Bordeaux lost its role, no trade, no in-
dustry, and we treated our city's patrimony badly . . . our wines are absolutely magical, so
why wasn't Bordeaux seductive, too?”
Delaux said the tourism campaigns were planned in parallel with Juppé's urban renew-
al. “Before, Bordeaux was absolutely not touristic—no, not at all. Tourists were condes-
cending towards Bordeaux. They were only interested in the vineyards.”
The public works proceeded apace, cleaning the city, uncovering buildings that had
been shrouded in two centuries of filth. “We were shocked by its beauty.”
The tourism policy was built around the city and the wine—“le vin et la ville”—and
coordinated between the city, region, and national governments and tourism agencies.
Delaux said it would take days to describe the system.
In 2002, while the city was still torn apart by construction of the tramways and land-
scaping the river front, Delaux tested the waters and invited travel writers to Bordeaux.
Success. From the
New York Times
: “With layers of grime stripped away, the true, tawny
splendor of elegant neo-Classical cornices, pediments and porticoes has re-emerged. The
effect is spectacular.”
Five years later the renovation was complete. In 2008, after serious lobbying, greatly
aided by Juppé's connections, Bordeaux was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO,
the United Nations' cultural organization. Half of the old city was declared to be of uni-
versal significance worth preserving. Within the tourism industry, recognition as a World
Heritage Site is the equivalent of winning four stars for a restaurant or an Olympic gold
medal for an athlete. Bordeaux's profile as a top tourist destination soared.
“Now everything has changed. Tourists came from around the world. Starred chefs
came to open restaurants. . . . Families came. . . . Deluxe tourists came.
Tout le monde
,”
said Delaux.
And tourism to Bordeaux and the region went from a negligible industry to the second-
biggest source of income.
Mr. Juppé was out of the country when I visited Bordeaux; I later met him in Washing-
ton, where he was on an official visit to the Pentagon. After his official talks he had a short
time to talk about Bordeaux.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search