Initial reports from the L'Independent, Languedoc's regional newspaper, show a quiet July in the Aude Department's two leading tourist area, Carcassonne and the Corbieres Mediterranean coastal resorts. "The phenomenon of a tourist season is rapidly disappearing", say Christine Pujol, head of the Hoteliers organsiation in the Aude, UMIH, "The tourist season is now spreading into 9 months a year". In her three star hotel, L'Hotel du Donjon, July is identical now to the months of May and June. This trend has been building for a number of years, since the introduction of the 35 hour week the French have gradually started changing the way they take vacations, many working in excess of 35 hours a week and building up extra holiday days which are taken as long weekends, so shorter holidays more often rather than the classic long holiday in July or August.
The other change noted particularly by Daniel Dulot, director of Gites de France in the Aude, is that were as before holidays were planned along time in advance now there is an increasing tendency toward last minute booking, the number of online bookings via the internet, year on year online booking for Gites de France, Aude, have increased by 10% now making up 35% of all bookings."We are not having a great year, but the start of the season, unlike the other regions of France where numbers are seriously down, is holding up and in the high season we are close to 100% bookings, when someone cancels the free property is rapidly re-booked" says Mr. Dulot.
The rural Aude continues to be highly in demand and has suffered less than the high profile beach and Carcassonne.
The last five years have seen a zero increase in consumer purchasing power in France as wages have remained virtually frozen in most sectors, this is being acutely felt by the restaurateurs of the Department. The tourist usage of the ever expanding "hard discounts" stores through the Aude has been at the cost of both the restaurants and the traditional supermarkets. This has particularly been notisable amongst the campers and caravaners who are spending less and less every year according to the Languedoc Roussillon Camping Federation.
On the other hand the expansion of the Ryanair services at Carcassonne, with the launch of the Dublin route and the recent announcement of a route to and from Liverpool opening in February 2006 has lead to strong growth in Irish and English tourists. The numbers of German tourists have been clearly hit by the pularity of the new Central and Eastern European resorts, but inversely the number of Polish tourists are on the increase.

Carcassonne and the Corbieres Coast hit by low July tourist figures- 4th August 2005 Peter Shield
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