More Int’l Tourists Are Returning to Paris Post-Pandemic But Asians and Americans Remain Sceptical
The same points out that the main tourists in Paris come from the other Member States such as Spain, Germany, and Italy, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.
Furthermore, while tourists from the United Kingdom continue visiting Paris, the destination is witnessing a decrease in international tourists from the United States and Asia, as the latter remains two-thirds behind the pre-pandemic tourism levels.
“We’ve had quite a few Italians, quite a few Spaniards, some from Eastern Europe countries, quite a few British people; it remains really European,” Jonas Seignovert, the manager at Chez Eugene in Paris, said, noting he had also seen some Brazilians and American tourists, but almost no Asians.
According to data from Statista, Paris was the second most visited destination in Europe in 2019, with 19 million tourists for the year, following London, which had about 500,000 more visitors.
Other destinations to follow on this list were Istanbul (14.7 million), Antalya (13.3 million), Roma (10.3 million), Prague (9.1 million), Amsterdam (8.8 million), and Barcelona (seven million).
The same source shows that the international visitor spending in Paris in 2018 reached over €13 billion, showing a surge of about one billion year-on-year records. However, this number is lower than in 2013, when more than €18 billion were generated by the travel and tourism sector in the French capital.
Nonetheless, Paris hotels have reached 2019 profit levels in March, as the Smith Travel Research (STR) report has revealed. According to the source, Paris hotels reached €111.18 gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR), increasing significantly from the two previous months.
“In general, leisure-dependent markets have been furthest ahead in the timeline, but there are encouraging signs recently of life returning to gateway cities that are more reliant on corporate demand. Our occupancy-on-the-books data shows that many of the major markets should recover to 90-100 per cent of 2019 levels by mid-May,” the STR’s managing director, Robin Rossmann, said.
Furthermore, as data from Statista reveals, the total contribution of travel and tourism to GDP in France peaked at €210 billion at pre-pandemic levels, with an average of contributions from 2012 to 2019 standing at €200 billion.
However, this number halved in 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic severely damaging the tourism sector and the contribution to GDP reaching a mere €107.9 billion.
