ABSTRACT
With the near general closure of borders in 2020, many European states have encouraged their citizens to resort to domestic tourism, i.e., within their borders, to avoid the collapse of an entire section of their economy. Is this the sign of a permanent evolution of the tourism model toward a practice of proximity, as some authors suggest that the crisis linked to COVID-19 could finally put an end to international (over-)tourism, which has been decried for several years? This analysis is subject to debate. By examining the crises of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, this article proposes to understand how the dynamics of international tourism and domestic tourism in Europe have been associated, with a particular focus on the French case. It is a cumulative process (and not an opposing one) that gradually took place during the 20th century in Europe. If international tourism has been systematically perceived as a tool for capturing the foreign currency necessary for post-crisis recovery since the First World War, gradually serving as a model (as with a strategy to move upmarket during the Great Depression), domestic tourism, due to its permanence, has often been used by the tourist actors in order to lay the foundations for international tourism, for example with the investment plans in the second half of the 20th century. In that respect, the study of the long term offers a necessary perspective to better perceive the stakes involved in the management of tourism during the crisis that arose from the COVID-19 pandemic.