The resort of Les Menuires

Up until 1965, life in Saint-Martin-de-Belleville was still guided by traditions of the past. Isolated at the bottom of a valley, the population's only resource was rearing livestock and barely had enough to get by. To save the valley, Nicolas Jay, Mayor of Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, had the idea of launching a study into the development of his village for tourism purposes and put forward a development plan. In 1964, work began on equipping the Les Menuires resort with its first facilities for skiers and its first residences opened in 1967. Alongside the steady development of the skiing area around Les Menuires, building work began in 1973 on a new resort at an altitude of 2,300m: Val Thorens.After a period of considerable expansion through the 1980s, Saint-Martin-de-Belleville outlined a new, more limited development plan for the valley, broadly factoring in protection of the environment. In addition to the completion of the Les Menuires and Val Thorens resorts, this plan included the creation of a small tourist destination in Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, a picturesque village resort. The three resorts are connected to the wider 3 Vallées ski area.The development plan is now complete: the village, which had lost two-thirds of its population in the 1950s, now has 3,574 permanent residents and some 55,000 tourist beds.