How Mont-Saint-Michel intends to regulate the influx of tourists using artificial intelligence

Who among the Germans, Japanese or English goes more to Mont-Saint-Michel? If analyzes were previously carried out with a “wet finger”, they are now much more precise. “I used to say that Europeans and Japanese were more numerous, but during the high season, from May to September 2023, there were more Germans, English and Americans,” notes Le Figaro Thomas Velter, general director of the national public establishment of Mont-Saint-Michel. Over this period, tourists were made up of 61% foreigners and 39% French. In low season, from November to December, it is the opposite: 80% of visitors are French while the rest come from abroad.

To obtain such precise data, Mont-Saint-Michel used a technology from Orange, called Flux Vision, launched a dozen years ago. Concretely, “each time a tourist passes by an antenna, their SIM card is recognized”. “We then collect the information which we anonymize. The team of fifty Orange Business engineers uses algorithms to generate very detailed data for the client on the flow of tourists,” explains Marc Maouche, Orange regional delegate in Normandy. Thanks to artificial intelligence, this data makes it possible to know where people are coming from, the duration of their visit or if they are sleeping there. “It allows for fairly standard things, to get to know tourists better, to work on the type of documentation we provide, recommendations for visits and to regulate flows,” explains Marc Maouche. A solution which has already won over a thousand customers in France, including numerous tourist offices.

Also readHow Apollo Plus predicts visitor behavior at tourist attractions

If a first experiment was carried out last year at Mont-Saint-Michel, the place wishes to go even further and multiply the analyses. “It’s still under study but perhaps tomorrow we will be able to send an SMS to visitors present in the surrounding area to tell them to come or stop by a little later” to avoid the influx of tourists, underlines Thomas Velter. For the latter, the objective is to offer optimal visits to tourists to discover the site in the best conditions.

Thanks to the analyses, Mont-Saint-Michel also has the possibility of adapting its communication strategy. “We organized a show on June 23 and 72% of the spectators came from the Manche department, which validates our strategy of bringing local tourists,” notes Thomas Velter. With this in mind, “rather than displaying advertisements in the large metropolises of the West, it may be interesting to communicate in the medium-sized rural towns of the Channel”.

But then when is the best time to go to this historic site, which welcomes three million visitors each year? For the Mont-Saint-Michel representative, the ideal is to come in summer “before ten a.m.” or “after 4 p.m.” because “the 11 a.m.-3 p.m. slot is not very conducive to an effective experience”. If you can avoid the months of July and August, Thomas Velter recommends “coming in the spring, in the evening, during the events that we organize”. A way to ensure the quality of your visit and to delight young and old alike.