The Tour de France is only free for its spectators, gathered along the route. For stopover towns, it costs €60 to welcome the departure, or 000 to welcome the arrival. An entry ticket to which municipalities must add costs related to security, communication, infrastructure... Expensive? Given the fallout, surely not. The proof: there are approximately 150 of them each year who apply to receive the Grande Boucle. How do you go about winning the prize? Explanations from Valéry Genniges, consultant on behalf of several candidate cities, including Porto-Vecchio and Leeds, chosen respectively for the Grand Départ of the 000 and 250 editions.
Francs Jeux: How do you manage to get the Tour de France to take place, or better yet stop, in one or other of the cities whose candidacy file you are defending?
Valéry Genniges : There is no rule or ready-made method. Each city constitutes a particular case. The strategy to adopt depends above all on what the city or territory concerned wants. But, in all cases, you must know the event well to anticipate its possible course. And you have to start work well in advance. Things don’t happen one day, they happen over time.
Do all candidate cities use an external consultant like you?
No. Some manage on their own. But many actually get help from a specialized consultant.
The choice of stopover towns can be obscure from the outside. How does the decision-making process take place for the management of ASO, the organizing company of the Grande Boucle?
The Tour is not comparable to the Olympic Games. There is no vote to determine which city will have a start or finish. We submit an application, then the ASO people make their decision. Hence the interest in having a solid file and good arguments. Sometimes something new pays off. Next year, the Tour de France will start from Leeds, Yorkshire, England. A great first. This application was not a foregone conclusion; it took a long time and a lot of work to convince the organizers.
What is the benefit, for a city or a region, of hosting the Tour de France?
In terms of impact and global visibility, the Tour has few equivalents. The race is broadcast in 200 countries, for an audience of 3,6 billion viewers. She has a total of 400 hours of live time. For a city organizing the Grand Départ, like Porto-Vecchio this year, this represents a week-long advertising campaign, during which its name will be pronounced an average of a thousand times per day. This provides unrivaled visibility. In eight out of ten cases, the primary motivation for a city is to be able to be highlighted on the map. What would Mont Ventoux be without the Tour de France?
Comment collected by Théodore Heitz
