Is the French Way over-touristed? Campus Terra has the answer

People often say one cannot stem the tide of change, but does that apply to the different routes of the Way of St. James? In the middle of the Jacobean Year, research staff from the School of Business Administration and Management of the University of Santiago de Compostela have just designed a specific methodology to analyse the tourism carrying capacity of the most popular route, the French Way.

Through the analysis of parameters such as the available area, climatic conditions or administrative limitations, this team from the Lugo campus —led by Roberto Bande— concluded that pandemic-related regulations —such as increasing interpersonal distance between groups and pilgrims— reduced the usual capacity of the French Way by around 18%.

To reach this result, Bande analysed the total monthly hours of daylight, the length of each section of the Way, the average speed of pilgrims, average temperatures, or days of heavy rainfall, among others. All these factors directly affect the number of people the Way can carry.

Once these statistics were obtained, the team updated the previous documentation, which had been put together by the research staff of the USC Economic Analysis and Modeling Group (GAME) — a task in which the hotel industry was also taken into account. In this regard, the number of pilgrims per section and month was assessed, metrics that were compared to the estimated supply of accommodation in the main towns of each section in Galicia.

If we take into account that, due to the pandemic, the fall in demand has significantly exceeded the decrease in availability, the team of the School of Business Administration and Management of Lugo reached the conclusion that there are no pressure problems, despite the need to adapt to the existing restrictions as the situation evolves.