Operation seduction of Paris was beautiful and worked well. The French capital has hosted no less than 16.4 million tourists for the first half of the year 2017, according to the regional tourism Committee (CRT). A record that had not been reached since 2008, and which allows to consider an annual report is positive despite being in a secure environment and very marked.
There is a little more than a year, after a year marked by a wave of terrorist attacks, and major social movements, the disappointing results of tourism in paris – a decline of 15% in the second half of 2015 – grew the region Ile-de-France, the city of Paris and the government to pull the alarm, initiating an emergency plan of € 8 million. A communication campaign that now appears to have borne fruit.
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Return winner
The results of the interim report on the CRT, they speak for themselves : he notes a progression in the hospitality business of 10.2%, with 1.5 million tourists compared to the first half of 2016. For tourism consumption, tourism professionals île-de-france see a gain of 1.1 billion euros, on a total amounting to 10.1 billion euros.
An increase is mainly explained by the return of foreign tourists who had decided to avoid the French capital : it has increased 14.9% year on year. The CRT also reveals the main nationalities making their grand return, such as the Japanese (40.5% of attendance additional 204.000 tourists), the Chinese (29.5 per cent, 527.000 tourists ), but especially the Us (20.5% with 1.140.000 tourists), which remain the nationality most represented among the tourists in paris. The beginning of the year 2017 has in particular benefited from a postponement of some days and is not done in the past year, writes the committee.
[Credits : the regional Committee of tourism.]
Bodes well for 2018
The year 2018 would also be a good year for the tourism professionals in the paris region : 72% of them expect an improvement in activity in the coming months. Already for the month of September, 51% of those surveyed by the RTA qualify the state of the reservations of good, even very good.
The positive results of the tourism business this year, should refer to 2018. After having been dethroned by Berlin in 2015, the latest ranking ICCA (International Congress & Convention Association), which lists the most popular cities for tradeshows, refers to Paris as number one for the year 2016. As a leader that should keep the City of Light in 2017 and 2018, thanks to the opening this year of the Paris Convention Center, located at Porte de Versailles.
The audit firm PwC predicted for the year 2017 a growth of 3.6% for the tourism île-de-france. A projection that should even improve for the year 2018 : with a projected growth of 5.8 per cent, Paris would be sixth position in the ranking of global cities registering the highest growth of sales hotel, behind Porto and Budapest. Anything to take the place of London as the most visited city of Europe.
