Guests Welcome; Tourists don't deserve their bum rap. Without them, Provence might become a derelict bastion of mediocre food.(Cover story)

Byline: Peter Mayle (Mayle is the author of "A Year in Provence" and, most recently, "Confessions of a French Baker.")

Tourists are guilty, so we are frequently told, of a number of crimes: upsetting the ecological balance of Mount Everest, parking wads of chewing gum under the benches of museums and art galleries, wearing unsuitable T shirts in Notre Dame, debauching the local peasantry and generally lowering the tone of everywhere they choose to set their benighted feet. Rarely has a group of people been so widely reviled, and I am one of them. So are you. I've been a tourist in Provence for about 15 years now, often on the receiving end of criticism or mild abuse from people who accuse me of having "ruined" the region by writing about it. Curiously, these complaints, which are sometimes offensive and invariably very shrill, do not come from the Provencaux themselves, who seem to regard me as a fairly benevolent oddity, but from my fellow tourists.

From their vantage points in London or Brussels or Boston, they deplore what they say has happened to Provence. They know, from investigations carried out during their brief annual vacations, that Provence has changed. The markets are more crowded, the prices have gone up, the restaurants are full, the sunniest cafe tables are taken, bakers run out of bread, waiters run out of patience, there is nowhere to park and nobody--but nobody--can be found to fix a leaking pool.

Mass tourism in Provence started more than 2,600 years ago with the arrival of Greeks from Phocea, who founded Marseille. They were a civilizing influence and provided jobs for the locals, and could therefore be described as acceptable tourists. So were the Romans, who built the monuments and viaducts and amphitheaters that we still enjoy. Then came a bad patch, with the arrival of Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Franks. They amused themselves by terrifying the inhabitants and ravaging the countryside. Here, perhaps, is where it had its start: the reputation of tourists as slobs.

After many years of on-the-spot observation, ...