184 TOURISM LAW IN EUROPE of agglomerations44 that had been awarded the label of classified tourist resort – and also those that were in the process of being awarded the label before 1 January 2017 – to retain their competence for “promoting tourism, including the creation of tourist offices” and therefore to maintain their communal tourist office without being attached to the intercommunal body45. Communes wishing to benefit from this permanent derogation had to notify it before 1 January 2017. Many community tourist offices have been created on a voluntary basis. Several groups of municipalities can also create an inter-communal tourist office. Initially, the legislator required the creation of a mixed syndicate in order to set up this office. While this was only possible in the legal form of the public industrial and commercial establishments (fr. EPIC) when the Law of 14 April 2006 was published, the Law of 22 July 2009 repealed this restriction. The legislator had indeed wanted to give more guarantees on the legal stability of this category of office, but its overly complex status made this possibility ineffective, hence the desire to make it more flexible. Since the Order of 26 March 2015 concerning various simplification and adaptation measures in the tourism sector, the creation of inter-communal tourist offices has been facilitated and is carried out directly by concordant deliberations of the deliberative bodies of the groupings of communes concerned46. It is no longer necessary to be attached to a mixed syndicate. Free status: Intercommunal tourist offices can be created in the same legal form as the others: an association, an industrial and commercial public establishment, a local semi-public company or a local public company, a legal form which is gradually being developed. Their resources are identical to those of a traditional tourist office. 2.3.4. LEGAL STRUCTURES Legal forms: Tourist offices are generally created under four statutes: associations, semi-public companies or local public companies, public establishments of an industrial and commercial nature, and governing bodies. The tourist information centres have had the form of an association, but no formalities are provided for in the texts. Today, 68% are associations, 15.5% are governing bodies, 14.4% are public industrial and commercial establishments and 2% are semi-public companies or local public companies. 44 Code général des collectivités territoriales, art. L. 5216-5. 45 Classified tourist resorts that are members of an urban community or a metropolis are not affected by this derogation. 46 C. tourisme, art. L. 134-5.
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