As part of the NUITour project, we aim to continue exploring the links between tourism and issues related to light pollution.

The Blue Nights project enabled us to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of recreational activities in coastal areas in relation to increased light pollution. This project also highlighted the need to raise awareness among stakeholders in the tourism sector—including tourists—about the negative impacts of excessive artificial lighting, given existing perceptions associating nighttime, artificial lighting, and recreational or festive activities.

With NUITour, our study focuses on the Pays Bigouden Sud Community of Municipalities and examine the practice of motorhome tourism, as it oscillates between a desire for nature and escaping from the city or the daily grind, while also exploring the desire to live differently.

We will explore the hypothesis that darkness could be valued as a resource, more readily accepted and experienced within a leisure-oriented timeframe and in a context perceived as more natural.

We also wish to explore the transition from day to night through transitional moments such as sunset or sunrise— moments associated with positive emotions toward darkness. The opportunity to observe the night sky is also seen as a rewarding experience.

The main purpose of this project will be to identify the factors that promote and hinder the use of darkness as a resource to be harnessed in recreational settings and coastal areas.