The fairytale towns of Alsace are now tackling their winter overtourism problem.
“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 is 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.
In this city and the surrounding region, December is the most touristy time of the year, with over five million overnight stays recorded in the last five weeks of 2023.
The Land of Christmas is suffering under the strain of visitors
After all, Alsace describes itself as 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 many locals, however, this Christmas magic has become a curse, plaguing their towns and villages with impassable crowds, traffic jams, and noisy streets.
“There are times when 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 everywhere. I’ve even seen fights break out in the bathroom queues”.
Ehret recalls a distressing incident involving an elderly woman who, unable to reach the toilet in time, had an accident. “That is an extreme example of the scenes of overtourism we see, but what has become clear is that we have stretched these markets to the limit,” he says.
Alsace’s Christmas markets are now being carefully managed
For several years, locals have expressed their concerns about this overcrowding, which makes it challenging to park, walk around, and even sleep, as the Christmas markets are often 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 the city.
Kayserberg has limited the size of its markets, while the town of Colmar has published a crowd calendar similar to those produced at theme parks.
“People can see when the market will be quiet and choose to come during those times,” says Éric Straumann, mayor of Colmar.
“So far, we have noticed a slight increase in people during the off-peak times, meaning there has been a slight evening out of visitors,” 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 colourful timber-framed houses surrounded by vineyard-covered hills.
But during the month of December, the 1,050 yearly residents are joined by 450,000 visitors.
“It is a stressful time for the locals,” says Daniel Klack, the mayor of Riquewihr. “Christmas season requires a lot of patience.”
To tackle this problem, Klack has limited the size of the market to 43 stalls spread around the village. The village hall has also organised a carpark a few kilometres away, with shuttles bringing visitors into the centre.
A similar system operates in the nearby town of Kayserberg. Christophe Bergamini, director of the tourist office of the Kayserberg Valley, notes that visitors still try to get as close as possible to town and often park their cars along the main road. “It creates traffic, as well as safety issues, as you have lots of pedestrians walking on this busy road,” Bergamini says.
All the same, Bergamini is reluctant to use the term ‘overtourism’.
“What we 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 has nothing to do with the situation in Barcelona or Dubrovnik,” he says firmly.
The winter visitors make Alsace residents question where they live
This overcrowding during the winter months undoubtedly affects locals’ quality of life, as Ehret explains that it impacted his decision of where to live.
“When I bought a house, I knew I had to avoid the centre of towns like Riquewihr,” he explains. “And I’m not alone. People are asking themselves whether living in these beautiful town centres is worth the hassle.”
For Ehret, the situation is rapidly reaching its limit, and he says more extreme measures will be needed.
“At some point, towns will no longer be able to absorb any more tourists. And they will have 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 many towns, but officials are reluctant.
It’s a “false good idea,” according to Straumann, who explains that it would create a bottleneck at the different entrances to the town, leading to large queues that would be inconvenient for locals and visitors alike.
There’s also the difficulty of sealing off every entrance to the old town centres, as Bergamini notes. Klack, agrees, saying that charging for the entry “isn’t really in the spirit of the event. It would make the market feel like a theme park.”
One thing is for sure: the overcrowding problem will not go away soon.
Most Alsace Christmas markets no longer run advertising campaigns, yet their fame continues to draw visitors from France and abroad.
Whatever measures had been taken to tackle the crowds, the mayors agreed on one thing: so far this year, numbers are higher than ever.
