Today, Mont St Michel is the France's number one tourist destination outside Paris. Each year, over three million two hundred thousand visitors come to admire it.
To organize the parking facilities and shuttle public transport system from the mainland to Mont St Michel, we needed to have a clear idea of the number of people visiting the site and of those working there. These surveys were carried out during peak and off-peak periods, and also during the quiet season.

While of course Mont St Michel has its fanatics who come all the year round, and especially for the spring tides, an overwhelming majority of tourists prefer July and August and bank holiday weekends.
On fifty to sixty days in the year, the Mont is a hard place to get to.

Whatever the season, most people arrive in the morning or early afternoon. In summer, there is also an evening rush of people who come for the Abbey's evening show.
There is to be parking space for 4,140 vehicles, which is the number currently parking on the beach.

Surprisingly, just one visitor in five is non-French (British, German, Belgian or North American). Visitors are fairly young (average age 36), and they often come or come back with the family. 80% are making their first or second visit. Finally, the "locals" from Brittany and Normandy come flocking, accounting for 20% of the total.

The exceptional spring tides draw a knowledgeable public to Mont St Michel, mostly from the surrounding area, attracted by a fine and rare sight. The rock is completely water-bound, except for the causeway, which stays above the water level. A wave caused by the meeting of a fast rising tide with ebb currents known as a tidal bore or eagre then forms at the mouth of the Couesnon and in the Sée and Sélune estuary (Roche Torin and Grouin du Sud headlands).

On 9th and 10th March 1997 the "spring tides of the century" (coefficient 116 and 119) gave an opportunity to gauge the impact of these natural occurrences in terms of numbers of visitors. The estimated figure came to 2,600 compared with an average 1,300 during what is usually a quiet period.