“This year, the number of tourists is much higher than the last time I came. [Il y a] a lot more people”observes Noemi Rizzato, originally from Milan, who braved the cold at the end of December to visit the Place du Trocadéro, wrapped up in her down jacket.
“We heard all languages spoken, except French in the metro”, laughs Georges Bardot, a 78-year-old retiree from Franche-Comté.
This winter, Parisian hotels are full: the reservation rate for the two weeks of Christmas vacation was close to 70% in mid-December, or 9 points more than a year ago, according to MKG data Consulting.
High-end establishments are doing well, with an increase of almost 14 points over one year. Proof, according to the Union of Hotel Trades (Umih), that international customers with strong purchasing power are back.
The Olympic Games have “made tourists want to either come back or come, given the images”, analyzes Frank Delvau, president of the Paris-Ile-de-France branch of Umih, who sees in these figures a “JO effect”.
The new Minister responsible for Tourism, Nathalie Delattre, promised Friday to AFP “to precisely analyze the causes of such an increase in the coming months”.
“But it is obvious that Paris benefited from an exceptional showcase”she estimated. “We have demonstrated France's capacity to organize major events (…) while guaranteeing the safety of all. (…) It is today a major parameter.”
Disappointed by a lackluster summer report, with a sharp drop in activity for restaurants, museums and taxis, tourism professionals were expecting this positive rebound effect. With 5 billion viewers, the Paris Games were the most watched in history, according to the IOC.
Catch-up effect
“We needed this catch-up effect because the situation was very complicated in the third quarter. With the Olympics, (…) there were very significant drops in attendance. The restoration was less 40%, less 50% at times”, continues Mr. Delvau.
On the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame Cathedral is located, the neighborhood's traders were impatiently awaiting the return of visitors, after five years of reconstruction work marked by Covid and the drop in tourist numbers.
“Reopening Notre Dame this year was the most important item on our list. (…) It’s a magnificent monument and it was great to see it, to pray there, to visit it“, says Teju Arora, an engineer from the United States, wearing a red beret.
The first week of its reopening in December, the cathedral welcomed 270,000 visitors in eight days, the rector archpriest of Notre-Dame told the newspaper Le Parisien.
The tourists “say to each other [que] it’s time to go to Paris, (…) at the same time they have Notre-Dame, the windows of the department stores which always attract a lot of people,” summarized Mr. Delvau.
From November 1 to December 8, international air arrivals to Paris recorded an increase of 15.4% compared to 2023, to reach 1.3 million, according to the barometer of the Paris tourist office.
