Enquête quartier latin.

BERGANDI Milla
BOUTIER Emma
DIL Elise
HUGOT Lisa

Tourists' vision of the Latin Quarter.

INTRODUCTION.
(lisa).

DATA.

We went to interrogate bystanders on different locations : in this part, we will focus on the answers we got from the people at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, le Jardin des Plantes and the Pantheon. Before getting deeper into our study, we would like first to give a bit of informations over the people we interviewed, and this for each of the locations. At the Pantheon, 88,5 % of the people were in the 15 to 45 age group, and 11,5 % in the 45 and more, which shows that the place was more visited by the “young” population. Most of them were foreigners (56,2% of them, and 57,9% of these were outside Europe and came from America, Asia, Latina America) while the other 46,8% were actually French (with 16,7% of them being Parisians). 42,7% were french speakers and 57,3% answered our survey in english, which shows that they had english skills in plus of their native language. In Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 53,2% of the people were in the 15 to 45 age range, and 46,8% in the 45 and more – which is less radical and more balanced than in the Pantheon. 46,8% of the people we talked to were French (16,7% of them being Parisians) and 52,2% of them were foreigners (71% of them came from outside Europe : Asia, America, Latina America and Australia). In this location, 61,5% of the people answered our questions in french while the other 38,5% took the survey in english. Then, in le Jardin des Plantes, 40,1% of the respondents where in the 15 to 45 age group and 59,9% in the 45 and more. 72,7% were French (62,5% of them being Parisians) and 27,7% were foreigners (with the half of them being outsiders of Europe, coming from Asia and mostly Latina America). They were 77,7% of french speakers and 22,3% to answer to our survey in english. We chose to give these numbers to show that, from one location to another, the types of people we met changed – such age the age gap, the proportion of tourists and foreigners in one or another place, etc.

I ) The Latin Quarter : how the tourists do perceive it.

This being said, we will now focus on the reason why they came in the places we studied. To learn more about our respondents, we asked how they came : 18,2% of them answered that they were on their own, 32,9% came with their family, 21% with their partner and 27,9 people arrived with their friend(s). Most of them chose to come accompanied with somebody, and those being on their own were in the minority : indeed, it seems that most of the people consider tourism as a social action, and don’t like to be alone while traveling. Also, people mostly came with their family. When we asked them if they had already visited some monuments of the Latin Quarter, we let them check the names in a list : those who were the most visited by our respondents were the Luxembourg Garden, the Saint-Michel Fontaine and the Cluny Museum (even though it isn’t opened any more). Since the Luxembourg Garden is a place well-known and actually liked for being wide, shiny and user-friendly, it is not a surprise that a lot of our interlocutors already went there. It is a nice stop : people usually rest there to sit on the seating, talk, and take the road again.
After that, we wanted to actually see their knowledge of the Latin Quarter, then their feelings about it. When we asked to the people at the Pantheon, 34,4 % of them revealed that they already came here in the past. At le Jardin des Plantes, 90,1% of the people told us the same thing : and for Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the numbers are at 92,7%. But, when we asked them if they knew in which quarter they were at the moment we met them (without telling them that they actually were in the Latin Quarter, because we wanted to “test” them), 69,8% of the people knew they were in the Latin Quarter at the Pantheon, 50% at le Jardin des Plantes and 46,8% at Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In the case of the Panteon, most of the people knew about the Latin Quarter, and it being a part of it. But when it came to le Jardin des Plantes or Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the numbers highly decreased : this can be explained by the fact that people not necessarily knew about the weight of the quarter, especially in the case of le Jardin des Plantes. Actually, most people were surprised after we revealed them that, in fact, we still were in the Latin Quarter. But most of them knew about the Latin Quarter, or had once heard about it. According to their answers, they thought about it as quite an historical and important quarter. A few of them even knew the origins of the name of the quarter, which comes from the fact that it is one of the latest places in Paris where they spoke latin since the classes were taught in this language. 49,9% of the people didn’t know anything about the history of the quarter, which is pretty balanced with the positive answers we got (50,1%). The most recurrent answers we received when we asked people if they knew something historical about the quarter were about May 68, knowledge related to the Roman Empire (Lutetia Arenas, thermal baths, etc.), or the fact that the quarter was a place where all the thinkers met up and crossed when it came to share their knowledge and culture. Moreover, most of our respondents considered the Latin Quarter as a very cultural place (because of the theatres, street artists such as singers and performers), also an intellectual one since there are a lot of book stores, museums, etc. - some of them added that they considered the place also as very touristic since it attracted people with its history and wealth. And, most of all, the answer that we received the most was that the Latin Quarter was also very scholar, since it greets many schools and universities – and always had, in the past.

TRANSITION.

We decided that we would interview some tourists outside the Latin Quarter. So, we went to the Trocadéro – since it is a very touristic place in Paris, we knew we should have some people who would be willing to answer our survey. The point of going there was to get a better representation of the tourists that live in (or visit) Paris and to have a point of view from the outside, concerning the Latin Quarter. By questioning tourists who were in some places away from the Latin Quarter, we knew that there was a great probability that they knew things about it.

II) The Latin Quarter and its thereabouts : the Trocadéro.

In the Trocadéro, 63,3 % of the tourists were French, including 23,3% of Parisians. 16,7% were from European countries, and the last 20% were from other countries (Chilia, Argentina, and so on). 66,7% of the people we interrogated in the Trocadéro had already heard about the Latin Quarter. This means that the majority of the tourists interrogated knew about the Latin Quarter. However, there is 33,3% of the tourists that have never heard anything about it which still represents a big part of the tourists. Even though a majority of the people knew about the latin quarter, we can say that it is not so famous. Not all people know about it, probably because it is not where they were going.
What is interesting is that even though the majority of tourists had already heard about the latin quarter, only 10% of them knew some things about the history of the Latin Quarter. 10% is not a lot. The answers that most of those people (from the 10%) said is that the Latin Quarter is the old quarter of the University. That is the most pertinent answer that we get. The other 90%, which is a large majority didn’t know anything at all about the latin quarter. The people who knew the Latin Quarter said that it was a good place, full of students everywhere, and a place where food was not really expensive. From the answers that we get in the Trocadero, we didn’t get answers about the cultural aspect of the Latin Quarter. People talked about the shops, and the restaurants, and not so much about the cultural aspect. On the 66,7% of the tourists who already heard about the Latin Quarter, more than a half had already been there. After telling more about the Latin Quarter to the other half, some of them seemed to be interested and willing to go there.


To conclude, it seems that the Latin Quarter is a location that not every tourist knows about – this has been shown with the numbers earlier. The Latin Quarter sounds like it has its own reputation – we noticed it because sometimes knew it only by its name, or a place, or a story they heard about it. Others know it because of a specific place : we met a woman who asked us if we knew how to go to the Café de Flore, for example. Indeed, the quarter carries itself thanks to its credit and the fame it translates – for some people, the Latin Quarter is also related to what is huppé, swanky, since the location became more and more attractive for the higher classes. Also, some people seem to only know the Latin Quarter by its name, without really giving it a try or being interested in it – but after learning a bit more about its past and how it gave a strong luggage to Paris, they seem to be willing to visit it.