180 TOURISM LAW IN EUROPE 2) Seasonal Rental Activity: ADT (Tourist Development Agency) ADRT (Tourist Development and Reservation Agency) Purpose: The departmental tourism committees can carry out seasonal rental activities and the question arises as to the applicable legislation. 2.3. Local Institutions and Tourism The commune is the place where the administration is closest to the inhabitants. The laws of decentralisation have strengthened their competences in the field of urban planning, economic26 intervention, social action, culture and tourism. But if the municipalities are the main actors of tourism in the field of public action, the essential characteristic of their intervention is that it is mainly carried out through specialised institutions, the tourist information centres and today especially the tourist offices (section 1), institutions which are based, as is often the case in the field of tourism, on the principle of a partnership with the private sector. A second characteristic of the local level of tourism is the existence of a specific status for tourist municipalities (section 2), which is explained in particular by the fact that although tourism is a source of wealth, the population fluctuations that affect tourist municipalities pose complex management problems. 2.3.1. CATEGORIES OF OPERATORS Tourist information offices:There are 36427 of them (in 2016), and they are an effective tool to ensure the reception, information and promotion of their municipality and their country. The difference between a tourist office and a syndicat d’initiative lies mainly in the legal structure and above all in the person who decides to create it (private initiative in the case of a syndicat, public initiative in the case of an office). Tourist offices: There are 1,800 of them (in 2016), and they are always created by deliberation of the municipal council (C. tourisme, art. L. 133-1). The municipality then decides to entrust an operator with the management of its tourism activity. The Law of 13 August 2004 on local freedoms and 26 In respect of the principle of freedom of trade and industry: TA Grenoble, Ruphy c/Commune de la Clusaz, JCP G 1989, part II, p. 21265, note Deves C.: loan guarantee in favour of a company operating a hotel complex despite the existence, in the commune, of numerous hotels of the same category. 27 Source: www.offices-de-tourisme-de-france.org.
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