They will be among the absent from the deconfinement of May 19. While shops, terraces and cultural places will reopen on this date, amusement parks will have to wait until June 9. Reassured to be exempted from a health pass for its visitors, the sector regrets this calendar, however, saying it is ready to reopen.
Professionals mention in particular a reduced risk of contamination by the predominance of outdoor activities and the effectiveness of the health protocols already in place the previous season – no cluster had been identified in the summer of 2020 in leisure establishments.
In the wake of government announcements on deconfinement, those of the Secretary of State in charge of tourism sowed confusion last week. The “Theme parks will be able to reopen from May 19”, reported Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, interviewed by RMC, Thursday May 6. But “The attractions in themselves, in the legal sense of the term, it will be on June 9”, he added.
“Open a museum without a painting”
“We do not understand this calendar well”, says Arnaud Bennet, president of the National Union of Leisure, Amusement and Cultural Spaces (Snelac), recalling that certain leisure places, such as zoos, may reopen at the same time as museums, cinemas and theaters.
“Opening without our attractions is like opening a museum without a painting”, continues Dominique Marcel, director of Compagnie des alpes (CDA), which owns many amusement parks, including Parc Astérix and Futuroscope, respectively the third and fourth most frequented leisure sites in France. “Cultural places are spaces with much more population density than our parks”, he specifies.
While some European countries have already reopened their amusement parks, professionals in the sector regret that France is “Lagging behind”. In Belgium, the Walibi park, which belongs to the CDA, has been welcoming visitors again since May 8. “On opening day, we counted 30% French”, explains Mr. Marcel. The latter also believed that he could not reopen his parks in France on June 9 because of the procrastination of recent days on the health pass.
In a notice to the government made public on May 4, the scientific council recommended the use of the health pass at the entrance to festivals and leisure parks, in order to allow ” a form of return to normal by minimizing the risk of contamination ”.
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