Second Home Tourism in Europe by Roca Zoran

Author:Roca, Zoran.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2013-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 7.6 Vacation homes along the Vendean coast (2007).

Source: INSEE Census survey 2005–09.

Table 7.3 Vacation homes and urbanization of the Vendean coast 1968–2007.

The Vendean coast is a poster child of residential economic development. Nowadays, Census data shows that this coastal urbanisation attracts a growing number of permanent residents, including retirees, and creates jobs in the service sector that in turn attract an expanding workforce. The population has increased by 1.6 per cent per year from 1999 to 2007, against a national average of 0.68 per cent only. This rapid expansion is mostly due to domestic migrations; 1.55 per cent a year (national average 0.57 per cent). The population is ageing, 28 per cent was over 60 years old in 2007 (national average 22 per cent). This proportion reaches 38 per cent in the 27 coastal communities. The Vendean coast is attractive to retirees who used to spend their holidays in the region during their working life and eventually bought a vacation home there, particularly during the booming 1970s. The average yearly balance of domestic retirement migrations was 1,140 during the 2002–07 period, 1.1 per cent a year. This influx of seniors helps boost the service economy during the winter season. Local employment grew by 19 per cent from 1999 to 2007, a significant gain to be compared to the national average of 12 per cent during the same period. In consequence, the area is equally appealing to people of working age. The average yearly balance of domestic workers migrations was 1,066 during the 2002–07 period, 0.7 per cent a year. However, there is a clear spatial divide in this population of newcomers. Retired newcomers settle preferably directly in coastal communities. Active newcomers settle in backcountry communities, where they find affordable housing options.

This overspecialisation in tourism and vacation homes creates a rising vulnerability to coastal hazards. Let us illustrate this point with the sad story of the small city of La Faute-sur-Mer, where Xynthia’s flood caused 27 fatalities in 2010.

There are an increasing number of aged urbanites living in the immediate vicinity of the coastline during the winter season. In past times, the coastline was mostly left to pasture and cropland. Shallow inland bays have been drained and converted to agricultural polders from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. To the south of the Vendean coast, the Poitevin Marsh is a large polder that has succeeded the former Gulf of Poitou. La Faute-sur-Mer is located on a sandspit of dunes that close this former gulf to the west. The spit is separated from the Poitou Marsh by the Lay river estuary. It used to be a tiny village of 328 inhabitants in 1936. This figure rose to 587 in 1968. La Faute had already turned into a family-oriented vacation resort (Figure 7.7).

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