Destinations

Residents ask if living in Alsace is ‘definitely worth the hassle’ as Christmas visitors block the streets

December 14, 2024

“Come on, next!” barked the market vendor as she shoved a warm, cinnamon-scented glass of mulled wine into my hand and gestured me onwards.

There’s a twenty-minute queue behind me, so I understand that the reputed Alsatian hospitality doesn’t have room to shine at Strasbourg’s overcrowded Christmas market.

On this city and the encompassing region, December is essentially the most touristy time of the 12 months, with over five million overnight stays recorded within the last five weeks of 2023.

The Land of Christmas is suffering under the strain of holiday makers

In spite of everything, Alsace describes itself because the ‘land of Christmas’. In a somewhat flowery language, the region’s tourist board wrote that local towns turn into ‘living paintings’, where market stalls sell gingerbread and mulled wine on a backdrop of ‘children’s adoring laughter’ and ‘enchanting’ carol singing.

For a lot of locals, nevertheless, this Christmas magic has turn out to be a curse, plaguing their towns and villages with impassable crowds, traffic jams, and noisy streets.

“There are occasions whenever you physically can’t move through the crowds at these Christmas markets,” says Daniel Ehret, a tour guide lecturer and Alsace local.

“There are long queues in every single place. I’ve even seen fights break out in the toilet queues”.

Ehret recalls a distressing incident involving an elderly woman who, unable to succeed in the bathroom in time, had an accident. “That’s an extreme example of the scenes of overtourism we see, but what has turn out to be clear is that we now have stretched these markets to the limit,” he says.

Alsace’s Christmas markets at the moment are being rigorously managed

For several years, locals have expressed their concerns about this overcrowding, which makes it difficult to park, walk around, and even sleep, because the Christmas markets are sometimes followed by noisy nighttime revelry.

Several villages and towns have taken initiatives to limit the crowds: Strasbourg reconfigured its massive Christmas market into fifteen smaller sections spread around town.

Kayserberg has limited the dimensions of its markets, while the town of Colmar has published a crowd calendar much like those produced at theme parks.

“People can see when the market will probably be quiet and select to return during those times,” says Éric Straumann, mayor of Colmar.

“To date, we now have noticed a slight increase in people throughout the off-peak times, meaning there was a slight evening out of holiday makers,” he adds.

Colmar also offers buses to nearby villages and their smaller Christmas markets – although these places, too, are feeling the pressure of overcrowding.

Christmas is ‘a stressful time for the locals’

The village of Riquewihr is straight out of an illustrated book of fairytales, with its vibrant timber-framed houses surrounded by vineyard-covered hills.

But throughout the month of December, the 1,050 yearly residents are joined by 450,000 visitors.

“It’s a stressful time for the locals,” says Daniel Klack, the mayor of Riquewihr. “Christmas season requires a variety of patience.”

To tackle this problem, Klack has limited the dimensions of the market to 43 stalls spread across the village. The village hall has also organised a carpark a couple of kilometres away, with shuttles bringing visitors into the centre.

The same system operates within the nearby town of Kayserberg. Christophe Bergamini, director of the tourist office of the Kayserberg Valley, notes that visitors still attempt to get as close as possible to town and sometimes park their cars along the foremost road. “It creates traffic, in addition to issues of safety, as you might have a lot of pedestrians walking on this busy road,” Bergamini says.

All the identical, Bergamini is reluctant to make use of the term ‘overtourism’.

“What we now have in Kayserberg is moments of high crowds,” he says. “Especially on Saturday afternoons and around dusk, when people come out to see the Christmas lights … but it surely has nothing to do with the situation in Barcelona or Dubrovnik,” he says firmly.

The winter visitors make Alsace residents query where they live

This overcrowding throughout the winter months undoubtedly affects locals’ quality of life, as Ehret explains that it impacted his decision of where to live.

“After I bought a house, I knew I needed to avoid the centre of towns like Riquewihr,” he explains. “And I’m not alone. Persons are asking themselves whether living in these beautiful town centres is definitely worth the hassle.”

For Ehret, the situation is rapidly reaching its limit, and he says more extreme measures will probably be needed.

“In some unspecified time in the future, towns will not have the ability to soak up any more tourists. And they’ll need to limit the numbers, like Venice,” he adds, referring to the Italian city’s plans to charge an entrance fee to limit visitor numbers.

Charging an entrance fee for the markets has been discussed in lots of towns, but officials are reluctant.

It’s a “false good idea,” in response to Straumann, who explains that it will create a bottleneck at the several entrances to the town, resulting in large queues that might be inconvenient for locals and visitors alike.

There’s also the problem of sealing off every entrance to the old town centres, as Bergamini notes. Klack, agrees, saying that charging for the entry “isn’t really within the spirit of the event. It will make the market feel like a theme park.”

One thing is needless to say: the overcrowding problem won’t go away soon.

Most Alsace Christmas markets not run promoting campaigns, yet their fame continues to attract visitors from France and abroad.

Whatever measures had been taken to tackle the crowds, the mayors agreed on one thing: to date this 12 months, numbers are higher than ever.