France is experiencing a spring renaissance for its tourism industry, especially in Paris. Ljusstaden saw a huge influx of visitors to the April Easter break, a trend that tourism officials say fortunately continues.
International tourism arrivals worldwide have more than doubled, an increase of 130 percent in January 2022 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Travelers regain confidence, and Europe and America lead the way.
France in particular is enjoying a tourism comeback, especially due to a reduction in Covid restrictions.
In February, international tourism revenues came “close to 2019”, said French Tourism Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.
With EUR 2.7 billion, revenues increased by EUR 1.5 billion compared to last year and decreased by 8 percent compared to 2019.
In 2019, before the pandemic, the tourism sector in France accounted for 7.4 percent of GDP and 9.5 percent of jobs.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris, for example, registered 22,000 visitors a day at Easter, close to its maximum capacity.
This is despite the conflict in Ukraine and the absence of Asian tourists due to Covid restrictions.
A quarter of visitors to the Eiffel Tower were French, the tourist office said.
European derogation
According to Lemoyne, France is “very well positioned” as “the largest travel destination in Europe for Americans, Belgians, Italians and Spaniards”.
The French, for their part, are “a European exception”, the minister said, pointing out that 60 percent plan to stay in their own country during the holidays.
“With a domestic base that will remain very strong and the return of international customers, this means we are facing a summer season that can be very, very dynamic,” said Lemoyne.
But Didier Arino, head of the Protourisme consulting company, warned that there could be problems.
“It is not the market that will be problematic, it is the cost of producing tourist stays, competitiveness, the appropriateness of product prices and purchasing power,” he said.
“Players are raising all their prices and right now things are going well because people want to thrive. But we are reaching the limit of what is acceptable to many customers.”
The Riviera compensates for the lack of Russians
The Covid pandemic and now Western sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine have kept rich Russians away from the French Riviera, one of their favorite foreign destinations.
But the region does not seem to have had problems finding large sums of money from other countries to compensate for the loss of its Russian visitors.
The pandemic had already caused an 80 percent reduction in the number of Russian tourists in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region, according to the head of the local tourism committee, Francois de Canson.
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After Paris, it is the second most popular French destination for Russian visitors.
The European Union has blacklisted hundreds of Russian oligarchs and politicians since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and added many more after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
But many ordinary Russian families living in France have stayed on the coast, according to Thomas de Pariente, deputy director of tourism in Cannes.
New customer base
“You can still hear Russian spoken on the Croisette,” he said, referring to the city’s famous promenade.
But a new “high-contribution” clientele, from Qatar and the United States in particular, has helped the Riviera’s tourism recover since the borders reopened, he said.
The tourism sector had courted new customers, including Scandinavian and Canadian visitors, even before the pandemic began.
Public relations campaigns have helped to “limit the damage”, said the president of the region Renaud Muselier.
There are now three daily direct flights between Nice and New York. A flight from Nice-Montreal has also opened.
At the end of April 2022, bookings in the region increased by 21 percent compared to the same period in 2019, according to the local tourist board.
Source: sn.dk