Holidaymakers are returning to Paris for winter holiday magic as the tourism industry rebounds, inspired by the successful Olympic Games and the reopening of Notre-Dame cathedral.
“This year there is much more tourism than last time I came here. Much, much more. Many more people,” said Noemi Rizzato, a tourist from Milan who braved the cold to visit the Place du Trocadero, bundled up in her down jacket.
Georges Bardot, a 78-year-old pensioner from eastern France, also pointed to large numbers of foreign tourists amid the holiday hustle and bustle in the City of Light.
Photo: AP
“We heard every language except French spoken on the Metro,” Bardot laughed.
This winter, Parisian hotels are experiencing a surge in demand.
The booking rate for two-week Christmas vacations neared 70 percent in the middle of this month, nine percentage points higher than a year ago, data from MKG Consulting showed.
Top-of-the-range establishments are doing particularly well, with an increase of about 14 points over one year.
Well-heeled international customers are making a comeback, the UMIH hotel and restaurant union said.
UMIH president for the Paris region Frank Delvau pointed to an “Olympic effect.”
The Games “have made tourists want to come back, or to visit,” he said.
Tourism professionals said the world’s largest sporting event led to a lackluster summer in Paris.
Wealthy Parisians fled the capital for the summer and many foreign holidaymakers chose to stay away due to transport gridlock and a security crackdown. Hotels and airlines such as Air France saw a drop in bookings, while taxi drivers and restaurant owners said their businesses had been badly affected.
With 5 billion viewers, the Paris Games were the most followed Games in television and social media history, according to the International Olympic Committee.
“We needed this catch-up effect, because the situation was very difficult in the third quarter,” Delvau said.
“There was a very sharp fall in visitor numbers. The restaurant business was down 40 percent, 50 percent at times,” he added.
From Nov. 1 to Dec. 8, international air arrivals to Paris rose by 15.4 percent compared with last year, to reach 1.3 million, the Paris Tourist Office said.
On the Ile de la Cite, the island site of Notre-Dame cathedral, shopkeepers eagerly await the return of visitors after five years of reconstruction work, as well as the COVID-19 lockdowns that saw a drop in tourist numbers.
“The Notre-Dame opening this year was the biggest item on our list,” said Teju Arora, an engineer from the US.
“And we did visit Notre-Dame, it was amazing. It’s a beautiful site and it was great to see, to pray, to visit,” said Arora, wearing a red beret.
About 270,000 people have visited the medieval masterpiece in the first eight days since Notre-Dame reopened in early this month, rector Olivier Ribadeau Dumas told French daily Le Parisien.
“Around 30,000 people a day enter the cathedral,” Dumas said.
Tourists “tell themselves it’s time to go to Paris,” Delvau said. “They have both Notre-Dame and the department stores’ windows, which always attract a lot of people.”
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