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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the mechanisms involved in the progressive integration of marginal and peripheral urban areas, located close to established tourist destinations, into the visited tourism perimeter, and the interplay of the supporting public and private actors. It focusses on the intertwining processes of commercial gentrification, heritagization and aestheticization of former “ordinary” or marginal areas as tools for and indications of their tourism development. It explores how the metropolitan tourism geography is progressively redesigned.

Following a comprehensive literature analysis, the Saint-Ouen flea market was selected as the object of study. The methodology is based on extensive in situ observations, a systematic analysis of the press and a corpus of tourist guides and several in-depth interviews with local public and private stakeholders.

This paper shows that combined public (Parisian urban and tourism stakeholders) and private interests led to the integration in the tourism perimeter of a space that was once on the margins of the tourism and metropolitan area. It highlights the mechanisms of this integration and the link between touristification, gentrification, aestheticization and artification. It was found that private investors and political decision makers regard Saint-Ouen flea market as a major opportunity for tourism and real estate development, which leads to some contradictions regarding heritage protection. Finally, it shows that market traders opposed the evolution of a commercial place into a place of symbolic consumption. At another level, it shows the stakes of tourism diversification in a metropolitan tourism destination that is characterized by overtourism.

More studies are needed to identify not only the potential of flea markets to diversify tourist areas and practices, but also any potential resistance. The consequences on metropolitan tourism can be the subject of additional investigations: can this tourism diversification reduce overtourism in the centre, or is it only a diversification that functions as an additional driver of attractiveness? This research opens new perspectives on the modes of diversification (spatial and experiential) of metropolitan tourism as well as on the role that commercial changes play in these evolutions. It also makes it possible to question the modes of engagement of investors and traders in tourism.

This is an in-depth analysis of the case of Saint-Ouen flea market. The issues raised herein are applicable to similar peripheral urban areas, flea markets especially, that are rarely studied on the tourism-aestheticization-gentrification nexus. The analysis also shows the diversification of places and imaginaries of metropolitan tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the adaptation strategies of inhabitants and the forms of participation they adopt in tourism activities in Paris. As public policies have recently recognized the importance of taking into account inhabitants in the tourism development strategy in Paris and its suburbs, this paper proposes an analysis of the different forms of this participation and its stakes for the territories.

This paper gathers the first results of a thesis work in anthropology that is based on an ethnographic method combining participant observation, semi-directive interviews and bibliographic work. Observations took place in Paris and in several cities of the Grand Paris with inhabitants involved in tourism activities, or who are experiencing a difficult cohabitation with tourists in their neighborhoods. Thus, some 40 semi-directive interviews were conducted with inhabitants, members of associations and entrepreneurs. There were also participatory observation works within public institutions, mainly at the Paris City Hall, as well as interviews with dozens of tourism professionals from the private, public and associative sectors.

Not all residents have the same commitment to tourism and they do not all want to meet visitors. The relationship of inhabitants to tourism is complex and heterogenous. Nevertheless, this research shows that the roles played by inhabitants are multiple: producers of tourist services, ambassadors for their city or neighborhood, the permanent resident can also be seen as a product that attracts visitors, and as a tourist himself. The permanent resident offers the possibility of going off the beaten track, and promotes the revalorization of the identity of a territory and its inhabitants.

The originality of this research lies in the choice to focus primarily on the point of view of the visited population in a European capital. Ethnographic work allows for the observation and analysis of practices, in order to understand the stakes of visitor/visitor cohabitation and to anticipate possible movements of anti-tourist rejections.