Still underestimated in the global geography of spa tourism, Turkey is nevertheless experiencing a revival of its spa tradition. This article draws up a first overview of thermalism in Turkey, in order to understand its origins, its heritage and its contemporary developments. Secondly, it looks at the shift in spatial paradigma of thermalism, from health care to well-being, with a particular focus on tourism projects in several provinces of the country. The article shows that this shift is leading to a change in the scale of places, networks and stakeholders involved in the spa industry. Thermalism thus plays a part in redefining the relationship between domestic tourism and international tourism.
The aim of this work, initiated by the Lorrthermae research group at the University of Lorraine, is to establish, for three former spas in the Grand Est region (France) (Plombières-les-Bains, Martigny-les-Bains, Sermaize-les-Bains), a territorial trajectory over a long period of time, a form of geohistory of the resorts. The three stations are analysed on the basis of aerial and ground views, several field visits and a review and analysis of various bibliographic, iconographic and archival materials productions, with a section on making this information available online. The territorial trajectory of the selected stations is dominated in all three cases by declining linearity, and the aim of this work is to identify the factors behind this. It also seeks to identify the territorial actors who can influence this and lead to a transition or even a bifurcation.
Natural Mineral Water is an underground resource exploited by two major economic uses: bottling and hydrotherapy. The operation of the MNE generates complex and close interactions between public and private actors. The type of links between the actors in each territory is therefore dependent on the control of access to emergences, the balance of power, the choice of rules of the game and the resulting financial issues (State, municipality, tourist office, spa establishment, ore producer, etc.). All of these interactions activate or not the geographical proximity, influence the development of the individual and collective strategies of the actors and ultimately contribute to the choice of the mode of economic valorization of the MNE resource (generic or specific) in each territory. In certain territories, this natural resource can be transformed into a specific territorial resource thanks to the actions of the actors. The specification strategy is based on the creation of a basket of goods structured around territorialized products and services with a particular staging. Different levels of progress in the construction process can be identified: completed site offer, embryonic dynamics, site offer under deconstruction, absence of activation. These dynamics shape unique development trajectories.
In Bagnoles de l’Orne Normandie, as in other spa towns, the crisis of legitimacy and attendance that has affected thermalism since the 1990s is all the more acute because it is compounded by a crisis of governability. Having failed to cultivate relationships of trust and cooperation in a context of growing social thermalism, local actors find themselves lacking the political capacity necessary to implement effective crisis recovery strategies. Taking this difficult context as its starting point, this article analyzes the political work carried out by local elected officials to rebuild collective action and define a shared tourism project. It shows how a municipal coalition was stabilized and then expanded through organizational innovations and the mobilization of new resources, enriching the territorial offer without diluting the capacity to guide strategy.
Aix-les-Bains, an internationally renowned spa town, has the unique characteristic of being located in a territory with a particular identity, Savoy, tossed between Piedmont and France in the 19th century. These successive political affiliations influenced the question of ownership of the spa establishment, between leasing, local association, and nationalization. Beyond the direct and indirect economic benefits, the alternation of operating models raised, at the local level, the need to defend the exception. A legacy substrate, the Aix spa establishment is today the subject of a vast operation to reappropriate a remarkable heritage and redefine its identity, marked by the marketing challenge of the Riviera of the Alps.
The article examines the potential of Moroccan thermal springs, located across six geographical areas but largely underexploited. While they have a long curative and spiritual tradition, their modern valorization remains fragmented. In the post-Covid context marked by the rise of wellness tourism, they represent an opportunity for sustainable development but face challenges such as the absence of regulatory frameworks, limited integration into public health policies, and risks of overexploitation. To address these issues, the article recommends the creation of a national thermal cluster and the integration of thermal cures into Universal Health Coverage, thereby enhancing attractiveness, accessibility, and shared governance. Thermal springs could thus become drivers of ecological resilience, social cohesion, and territorial development, provided they are managed in a sustainable and equitable way.
The article explores the link between thermalism and gambling. Although thermalism has always been associated with recreational activities that attract curists and contribute to the urbanity of water cities, the balances between these activities, which fall under two types of rent, are distinct according to the cities and evolve over time. The casino, the hippodrome and the thermal baths form a triptych that is discussed here from the point of view of heritage and economic dynamics. In general, the racetracks, although contributing to the prestige of spa towns, do not play the same economic role as casinos whose tax benefits sometimes take over from a spa activity in difficulty. The article focuses mainly on the cases of the spa resorts of Vichy and Enghien, whose casino is the country’s leading resort in terms of visitor numbers and revenue, and spa towns with fewer than 1,500 inhabitants in Occitanie to show the coincidence, then the disjunction, between thermal rents and gambling.
Born in the 19th century, the Vals-les-Bains spa has evolved over time, adapting to social demand. Tourist numbers grew steadily, thanks to the medicinal waters known since the 17th century. A bourgeois and colonial clientele settled here, before a relative decline in the second half of the 20th century. A resort town gradually developed, giving rise to a spa and tourist district. Nowadays, the modest spa town in the center of the Ardèche region still welcomes curists, tourists and visitors seeking well-being and a range of tourist activities in the broadest sense, thanks to a policy of networking and renewing the image of the spa.
This article describes the strategic challenges faced by the French thermal industry, a sector at a critical juncture between medical tradition and wellness appeal. It then examines the sector’s contemporary challenges (credibility, competition, location, training) and highlights its strengths and opportunities (local economy, aging populations, preventive health). Lastly, using the strategic triangle of services (cost, variety, personalization), it offers keys to strategic positioning.
The issues we address in this article are part of an important field of study in economic geography, focusing in particular on the concepts of territorial resources and basket of goods and service (BGS). We propose to renew the theoretical analysis by applying it to a specific type of heritage, in this case thermalism. The processes of territorial qualification at work provide us with a key to understanding the specific dynamics of development in these spa towns, both in terms of the actors involved and the forms of coordination and resources mobilized. We then illustrate the model through the case of the town of Spa in Belgium, where thermal water—at once a natural resource and a heritage asset—has become a central key driver of territorial development.
Although at the heart of a expanding food industry, fishing is undergoing transformation in a context of global changes (climate, pollution, increase human activities, European’s fisheries policy). These changes are seen by the evolution of fishing areas, species caught and port activities. Between changing eating habits, a decline of natural resources and the economic fragility of compagnies, French maritime fisheries are in transition. This article presents an overview of the fishing industry in France by presenting production areas, fleets and ports, and exploring a possible approach respectuful of the environment and players in the sea fisheries sector.
The Mayotte Marine Nature Park is the main marine protected area (MPA) in Mayotte. It encompasses a vast territory of 69,000 km², from the coast to the open sea. It has been established as a place for governance bringing together all the people responsible for marine issues in the territory. Although it responds to the dual need to preserve fragile marine environments and promote sustainable development in France’s 101st and poorest department, since its creation in 2010, it has remained largely unpopular amongst local populations. It is also, beneath its consensual exterior, an area of tension and even conflict between the “Mahorais” and the “m’zungu”, who are still largely in charge of environmental issues in the territory. The PNM’s management boards can therefore be spaces where post-colonial tensions are replayed. This article analyses the place given to the Mahoran population within the system, and the various strategies implemented by stakeholders within the PNM to gain acceptance for the MPA or, on the contrary, hinder its operation.
Between 1968 and 2020, population growth in the coastal municipalities was comparable to that in the rest of mainland France. In the rest of France, the increase in the number of inhabitants was primarily due to natural migration, but in coastal areas, migrations, particularly of the elderly, were the main driver of demographic growth. These migrations, which have accelerated the ageing of coastal populations, have been made possible by a considerable increase in the housing stock: in coastal towns, the number of dwellings has even risen by more than the number of inhabitants! This article specifies the factors that explain the very low demographic yield from the growth in the coastal housing stock. However, the contribution of the increase in the number of dwellings to the demographic dynamic varies from region to region. The use of an inter-regional comparative approach, on a geographical scale that is still highly aggregated, clearly highlights the great diversity of France’s coastlines.
In the high islands of French Polynesia, and on the island of Raiatea in particular, the coastline has always occupied a specific place in the spatial organisation of islands. Certainly, these coastal centralities are not unique in a world where coastal development has polarized activities and human beings, but in Polynesia their historicity and spatiality take on exacerbated, radical and total forms. As territories where history combines with geography, the sacred and utilitarian dimensions of places, economic and social issues, the contradictory political aims of local and external stakeholders, and where old and new populations cohabit, Polynesian coastlines face today with multiple issues that are overturning the coastal system. Based on a major survey carried out on the island of Raiatea, the aim of this study is to examine the territorial reshaping of island coastlines through the prism of the economic, social and land logics, in a context of economic/identity crisis and (geo)political upheavals that are being expressed at different scales in the contemporary Pacific world.
Estuaries are particularly vulnerable to submersions and flooding, especially in the context of sea-level rise (SLR). In the Loire estuary, where many issues are at stake, research into the socio-spatial representations of stakeholders and residents reveals a low sense of exposure to fluviomarine risks and SLR. These representations can influence people’s behavior in the face of threats, and thus increase the vulnerability of estuarine territories. In this context, if multiple factors can explain this result, the relationship maintained with the estuarine landscape could be one of the determining variables. Using qualitative and quantitative data, the results of this article highlight the importance of relationships with a “waterscape” that is itself part of a low-lying morphological ensemble. In this context, distance from the shore and perceived altitude are two elements that seem to support the hypothesis that the relationship with the estuarine environment could influence the feeling of exposure. In view of climate change, and because there are areas at risk, we need to work on reinforcing a landscape imaginary involving risk.
Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, a subarctic French overseas territory in the North Atlantic, is particularly vulnerable to coastal risks. In addition to its geographical isolation, institutional complexity and exposed coastal infrastructures, the island is now also affected by climate change. Coastal risks are exacerbated by the gradual disappearance of the winter “ice foot”, rising sea levels and more intense storms. Based on doctoral work (2018-2023) combining quantitative and qualitative methods, we present the risk management context in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. It is structured around a system modelled on that of mainland France, to which is now added the ongoing relocation of the village of Miquelon, an emblematic case of territorial adaptation. Initiated in a context of a growing awareness of risks, this process involves a wide range of stakeholders and is part of a concerted planning approach that highlights the tensions between social acceptability, technical feasibility, financial constraints and political dynamics.
This paper looks at the durability of the desire for the shoreline in France in the context of global changes, whether environmental or societal. It explores how the attractiveness of coastal areas, initially a driving force for development, has become a source of tension and place struggles. After defining attractiveness as a socio-political construct and demonstrating the systemic dimension of the notion of global changes, the article examines recent residential and tourism dynamics, focusing on the case of Charente-Maritime (France). It also discusses the responses of public policies put in place to regulate this desire for the shore, such as legislation on short-term rentals and the surcharge on second homes, highlighting the local contrasts in their application. In conclusion, the article questions the longevity of the paradigm of coastal attractiveness in the face of the ‘polycrisis’ and highlights the enduring strength of the desire for the shoreline.
Since the beginning of the 2010s, the use of machine learning techniques in satellite image processing has become a rapidly developing trend. In this study, remote sensing data analysis performed by algorithms of GRASS SIG software is applied to a Landsat OLI/TIRS scenes covering the area of W National Park, northern Benin. The research is based on two types of framework: unsupervised classification of satellite images and supervised classification based on several methods of machine learning, giving a technical perspective of programming applications in cartography. Analysis of multi-temporal data enabled to reveal changes in land cover types of landscapes within the study area in the period of 2013 to 2023. This study proved the efficacy of machine learning techniques for processing Earth observation data in geographical studies with a particular case of Benin, West Africa.
