Paris 2024 Olympics: a success for everyone except the tourism industry?

The Paris 2024 Olympics are undeniably a success and will mark the history of the games in different ways, and no one today will dare say that they weren’t a real success despite the legitimate concerns that preceded them. However, success doesn’t mean that they benefited everyone, or at least not in the immediate future, especially when we’re talking about a sector that was primarily affected by the event: tourism.

Paris 2024, the game of bets
An enchanted interlude
Games a success? What success?
The tourism industry on the front line
The harbingers of a disaster foretold
Figures we weren’t given
“Perception is reality” but it can distort it
What happened to Paris tourism?
Were the absentees wrong?
An unproven economic success, but an investment in the future?
Bottom line

Since the end of the Olympic Games, some people must be breathing a huge sigh of relief, while others – even if they are unaware of it – are plunging into what looks like a period of depression, the duration and intensity of which only time will tell.

Paris 2024, the game of bets

The first were the organizers of the games. Of course they believed in their project, even if at one point they weren’t far from being the only ones. Olympic bashing? Ambient pessimism? Quasi-cultural negativism? There may have been a little of that, but not the whole story. When you organize an event like this, you always take a few bets, but within reason. But the organizers of Paris 2024 had decided to go “all in”, they had an idea, almost a philosophy, and decided to go all the way with their ideas, even if it meant, perhaps, dying with them. Opening ceremony on the Seine, with all the risks and constraints that implies, use of historic sites in the city center to host a large number of events, swimming event in the Seine. a cauldron to host the flame suspended in the air above the Tuileries….

Between security, the weather, logistics, the city’s adaptation, the fact that it was impossible to rehearse the opening ceremony in real conditions and on site, the population’s acceptance of everything that had to be done to get there, the quality of the water in a river where it has been forbidden to swim since 1923, the very tense political and social context in France at the time… there were so many imponderables that the risk of something going wrong was real. Worse still: the risk of everything going wrong at the same time must have been at an all-time high in the history of the games, given that we’re talking about things over which any ruler or politician has little power other than to pray that everything goes well. Everything that could be brought under control was of course brought under control, but what couldn’t be brought under control still represented a unique mass of problems that could ruin these games. And I refuse to believe that this little world has slept peacefully over the last few months.

But the gamble paid off, and in the end, the rain that accompanied the opening ceremony was only the lesser of two evils, and may even go down in history as having given it a special charm. Today, the whole world can only congratulate the organizers of these games, and it’s well deserved. Without being in any way chauvinistic, I’d even go so far as to say that they set the bar so high, in so many ways, that I wish the future host cities of Los Angeles and Brisbane the best of luck in ensuring that they don’t suffer from the comparisons.

An enchanted interlude

And then there are the soon-to-be depressed who don’t know it yet. Parisians, French people, foreign visitors who came for the Games (many) or for tourism (more than before, but we’ll talk about that later), spectators from all over the world lived for two weeks to the frenetic rhythm of the competitions, but not only. They lived to the rhythm of an immense spectacle that dazzled their eyes to such an extent that never before has the word experience seemed so apt to describe these games. Experience during the events, but not only. For two weeks, Paris was a bubble in which they lived an enchanted interlude, with a good humor and joie de vivre that we never thought our capital was capable of.

And the social networks did their work, broadcasting images of the festive, good-natured atmosphere on the sites and throughout the city. People got to know each other, mingled, sang and danced late into the night in the streets, sending out the image of a perfect communion between an event, a city and people who seemed to be living in a bubble of lightness out of time. The fact that the games were held in the city was certainly a key factor, transforming it “into an immense playground and party zone“, according to the Chinese press, from which we didn’t expect so much.

So of course the networks are a distorting and amplifying mirror of a reality that was more measured, the atmosphere in the stadiums was skilfully organized (but the public still had to follow), they only showed certain parts of the city and certain populations (and often the same ones), but in the end it didn’t really matter, because the image of the people who had come to watch the events or just to discover the city and the sportsmen and women staging themselves on Tiktok was beautiful to behold and, for a moment, conveyed a kind of benevolent positivism so rare these days that we’d be stupid not to take our dose.

All these messages, combined with the positive feedback from a foreign press that, while critical on certain points, is full of praise for the show and its setting (“Ok, Paris, we get it, you’re to die for” admits the New York Times), has even managed to make a population of grumpy people proud of their city and put a smile on their faces. We thought it was impossible.

But it’s a well-known psychological fact: after such events, the return to earth is difficult. Gone is the adrenalin of competitions and medals, gone are the fields, gone is the party, gone is the communion, back to the daily grind, the uncertainties, the fears, the worries about the economy, the conflicts around the world. Withdrawal is always difficult when you’ve spent 15 days soaring.

“Even the French can’t find a reason to complain” (Wall Street Journal). Would you have believed it? The drug was strong, but it did so much good. It was so good that some Parisians who had fled the city for the duration of the games interrupted their vacations to come back and join the party.

But what memories! What a success!

And this is where the alarm bells are ringing, because we can’t do without an exhaustive review of these games, and time will tell whether they’ve been as successful as we’d like to think, or whether we need to add a few nuances.

Games a success? What success?

There are as many ways of defining success as there are stakeholders.

An organizational success? Undeniably. We’re talking about the logistics, but not only that: with 80,000 people (French and foreign police, army, security businesses) on deck, the city has never felt so safe (and it’s never been so clean either), so much so that I haven’t heard a single person who didn’t want it to continue like this.

A sporting success? We saw some great events, and even if I don’t remember any exceptional performances or a whole raft of new chords, it was a great show, well highlighted by impeccable staging. And on the French side, the results exceeded even the most optimistic expectations, with a touch of emotion to boot.

An atmospheric success? We’ve never seen such a great atmosphere in any event, so much so that it sometimes felt like a giant concert or karaoke. And the party continued in the streets afterwards.

An image success? The star of the Games was Paris, and never before has a city been so much a part of the Olympic Games, to which it merely lends its name in order to host them in its more or less distant suburbs.

An economic success? It may seem so at first glance, but this is something that can only be measured in the short, medium and long term, and it will take several years to gauge the impact of the games and their durability. Between the shopkeepers who didn’t feel the impact of the live games (or not), the future tourists who were motivated to come and visit Paris and France one day soon by the images of these games seen on TV or on social networks, and the businesses, both large and small (the big ones already have their networks), The economic impact of the games is protean, and it will take 1, 3, 5 or even 10 years to get a complete picture.

The tourism industry on the front line

But one thing’s for sure, if there was one sector in the front line, it was tourism. It’s the one that brings, lodges, feeds and entertains those who have come to Paris, whether to see the games, just enjoy the atmosphere or just do some sightseeing.

And when the weather’s fine, when the mood is good and festive, when people are happy, they’re also the first to benefit from this desire to enjoy, to celebrate, to forget their problems and enjoy the moment in this enchanted interlude.

An undeniably virtuous circle.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games were therefore set to be an economic success on two counts for this blessed sector, which normally accounts for 7.5% of French GDP (France is the world’s leading tourist destination) and in the 5th city to have attracted the most tourists in 2023 (contrary to popular belief, Istanbul, London, Dubai and Antalaya are ahead of Paris). All of which added up to a radiant summer.

But the more time passed, the more negative signals piled up, pointing to the risk of a real economic failure due to tourists not coming.

The reason? In fact, not one reason, but many.

Firstly, the fear that all or part of what can go wrong will go wrong. We’re not going to go back over it, but huge bets have been made, with, what’s more, out-of-control factors such as the weather.

Rain preventing the opening ceremony? It wasn’t so long ago that the Seine was in flood at the time of Roland Garros. Health risks? I’m not going to talk about the COVID (40 athletes tested positive), but simply about the fact that making it possible to swim in a river that hasn’t been swimmable for a century seemed like a losing battle. In fact, it was only swimmable for a few days during the Olympic fortnight. Security risk? Paris is no stranger to terrorist attacks, and when it comes to violent demonstrations, a real know-how has been demonstrated since the Yellow Vests, and the current political and social context had plenty to worry about. In addition, the last Champions League soccer final hosted in Paris two years earlier was a total fiasco in this respect.

Then there’s the risk of Paris becoming unliveable during the games, with the various controlled-access security perimeters in the city center, the obligation for some people to ask for QR codes to access their homes or go to work (remember the COVID? ), closed traffic lanes, tourist areas that are difficult to access, and monuments that the infrastructure in place partially hides from public view.

Should we blame those who spread these fears? In the beginning, it was just a diffuse, shared feeling, little things that ended up materializing into a strong message, like small, insignificant drops eventually forming a big storm cloud. Was this feeling justified? As a Parisian living close to a key site in the city center, I was initially curious to know how things were going to work out, a little worried when I saw the plans and discomfort that crescendoed as the games drew nearer.

Nobody said the games were going to go badly, just that life was going to be difficult, and some simply didn’t want to go through that, especially as it was a time when there was a simple alternative: take a vacation that you would have taken a little before or a little after anyway.

In addition to these very tangible factors, there was an “intangible” factor, partly cultural. Yes, the French like to grumble, and they had good reason to do so in anticipation of very legitimate fears. And then there’s the context of a general mistrust of power and authority, a politically and socially fragmented and multi-polarized country. No one wanted the Games to fail, but everyone wanted to have something to blame on the government, the president, the mayor of Paris or the president of the organizing committee, who had not asked anyone for anything but found himself in the front line. Saying that things were going to go badly allowed people to vent their anger without even hoping that they would go badly.

All this ended up generating quite a lot of noise, which was inevitably heard from abroad, with the active help of the media, which didn’t ask for much, and social networks, which fulfilled their role as dumping grounds for hatred and other fake news.

If the French don’t seem to believe in the success of the games, if Parisians are fleeing their city, how do you expect such a message not to dissuade foreigners from coming?

The harbingers of a disaster foretold

A little over a month before the event, the first figures are in, and they’re not good news for the sector.

On July 1, in a press release, Air France-KLM announced that it had noted “significant avoidance” of Paris by international customers over the summer period, resulting in “a negative impact on unit revenues of between 160 and 180 million euros for the period from June to August”. Traffic to and from Paris “lagged behind other major European cities”, with tourists either avoiding the French capital altogether or postponing their visit.

This is confirmed by my FNAM (“National Federation of the Air Industry and its Trades”): “We can only confirm that Paris is being avoided for the Olympic period“.

Collateral victim: Delta Airlines, Air France’s partner and, as such, the American airline offering the most services from American cities to Paris. We’re talking about losses of 100 million euros over the vacation period. According to its president Ed Bastian: ” Unless they go to the Olympics, people won’t go to Paris (…) Other tourists will potentially go elsewhere. “

As the games get underway, the French Union of Hotel Trades and Industries (UMIH) is sounding the alarm through its president, chef Thierry Marx: Parisian restaurateurs are seeing a 30-60% drop in attendance, due to three factors: Parisians have left, tourists haven’t been coming, and restrictions in certain neighborhoods are deterring those who are there.

A surprise? Yes and no. A well-informed restaurateur recently told me: “In London, restaurants were 40% down during the 2012 Olympic Games, while the city center was less affected, but we’ve only just been given these figures…”.

Hotels are talking about a minimum of -25% compared with the same period in 2023.

Not much better for cabs, where we’re talking about -50%, between tourists not being present and traffic difficulties due to the complete closure of certain districts.

It’s fair to say, however, that the hotel industry has shot itself in the foot, with some hotels sniffing out a bargain and raising their prices unreasonably, and others adopting dubious commercial practices such as forcing guests to book a certain number of nights, or repricing upwards rooms already booked, on pain of cancellation for guests who don’t accept the new rate.

At this stage, it’s easy to say that the lights are red and the crash was predictable. The ideal moment to release an alarming article…which we didn’t do. In fact, there were other elements tempering the cries of alarm, and it was important to explore them first.

Figures we weren’t given

But there were also figures that gave cause for more optimism, and strangely enough, these were less talked about in the media.

The very serious Hospitality.net informs us that for 2024 France has overtaken the UK as the preferred destination for American tourists, who along with the French and UK nationals and to a lesser degree the Germans will be the most present in Paris this summer. And what is the cause of this sudden influx? The Olympics, of course!

As early as February, according to Amadeus, there was a 25% increase in searches for flights to France before and after the Olympic Games. This could just as well mean that people wanted to avoid the Games but not France, or that they were arriving before the events and departing afterwards… More interestingly, Lille and Marseille, which were hosting events, were also affected in even greater proportions.

Of course, this was just research and had yet to materialize. But at the same time, the Paris Tourism Board announced a +115.5% increase in bookings compared to the period July 26 – August 11, 2023.

So who should we believe? The Cassandras or the optimists?

“Perception is reality” but it can distort it

Now that the curtain has been drawn and the first figures are in, we have a clearer picture of what has happened, even if the medium- and long-term impact will only be known in several years’ time.

15 million visitors were expected in Paris for the Paris 2024 games, or even “promised” by the organizers, and if we listen to industry professionals, they didn’t turn up. But what do the figures say?

According to the Paris tourist office, which calls itself “Paris je t’aime” (a name that might have made people smile in the past, but seems to be very much in the air today), 11.2 million visitors came to the Greater Paris region for the games (up 4% on 2023), 3.1 million of whom came to Paris (+19%). If we add in the future Paralympic Games, the tally will be good.

So, a priori, the tourists were there, even if we can’t avoid asking a few questions out of intellectual honesty.

– How much of this is post-COVID catch-up, which has nothing to do with gaming, even if this trend is at the end of the cycle (but for example, unlike other airlines, Air France has just reached its 2019 capacity).

– What did these tourists see of the Olympic Games when they went to the metropolis without going to Paris? Or does it just mean that they stayed outside and only went to Paris for the events? It’s not very clear, because even in the second hypothesis, the catering sector could or should have benefited even a little.

That said, these tourists include a large proportion of Americans (confirming previous figures), as well as a 27% increase in the number of French tourists (1.4 million).

In any case, Parisian hotels reported an occupancy rate of 84%, up 10%, and above all an increase of 16% in upmarket properties, where it was thought that the clientele would be the first to flee. However, it should be noted that for some properties, these figures were achieved by selling off rooms at the last minute, a far cry from the astronomical rates offered for bookings a few months earlier.

Yet the idea of an empty Paris is deeply rooted in the collective unconscious, even if the figures say otherwise.

In fact, the adage “perception is reality” has never been truer. We saw an empty city with a few spots of life and good cheer, and this became reality in the collective unconscious, even though Paris wasn’t “so” empty and the scenes of shared happiness that played over and over again on our screens were only very localized and over-amplified.

What happened to Paris tourism?

Let’s start with Paris empty of Parisians. It’s easy to forget that this is the norm at this time of year, as everyone agrees that the city is never as pleasant as it is in August, when its inhabitants have left and it’s abandoned to tourists. At the very most, vacation departures have been less smooth than usual, with people who instead of leaving at the beginning of August have packed their bags before the opening ceremony, but will therefore be returning earlier than usual.

Since I’m able to take my vacations off-schedule, I often leave in September to take advantage of this quiet period in the city (except this year…) but the few days I spent in Paris at the games debit confirmed my impression: Paris was as “empty” as usual between mid-July and mid-August, but I the people who were there concentrated on a few sites which gave a double image: a concentration of people in and around the Olympic sites, giving the image of a festive crowd, and even fewer elsewhere, giving the image of an empty Paris.

In fact, if you look closely at the videos shown in the media and on social networks, it’s always the same places, even the same people, and in the end 10 videos show a skewed perception of reality: it was neither emptier nor more festive, but very polarized, which amplified each of the city’s different facets.

Example: a video showing a crowd lying on the grass between the Tuileries and the Louvre Pyramid saying ”so there’s no one” ? It was, in fact, the best possible viewpoint of the Olympic flame on the one hand, and the only place where there was grass to lie down in the neighborhood on the other, since the gardens were closed to the public. If the Jardin des Tuileries had been open to the public, some of this crowd would have been there, and the space available would have “killed” this feeling of crowding, and… the rest would not have been there, because there would have been no flame to see.

Then, having had a few meetings on the outskirts of the Champs Elysées and spent some time in my favorite neighborhood, the Opéra, I can tell you that the enchanted interlude of the games quickly stopped outside “a 200m radius around the sites and some of the usually festive working-class neighborhoods. I saw far fewer people than usual, and none of the people I spoke to, whether acquaintances or chance encounters, French or foreign, mentioned the games to me. The subject never came up in conversation. Never…except with cabs and restaurant owners, but we’ll talk about that later.

We can therefore deduce that while the 11M tourists were there, a “Olympic” tourist replaced the usual tourist. They didn’t come for the same reasons, they didn’t go to the same places, and they had their own specific consumer behavior.

In other words, a tourist who came for cultural tourism, shopping and local gastronomy was replaced by an “Olympic” tourist who came for the games, to share this passion with his fellow human beings, and had made his budget allocations accordingly: everything for the tickets and savings on the rest.

This is what an industry professional referred to me as the “backpack tourist”, without it being in any way pejorative. Compared to the usual, rather well-off tourist who comes to Paris to “live well” and live ” Parisian-style “, this one has more limited means, has invested a lot in tickets, in the obligatory expense of transport and, on the spot, saves on the extras, i.e. accommodation and catering, not to mention museums and shopping, which are not on his agenda. He has prioritized his spending according to what’s important to him, and is then somewhat compelled to live as autonomously as possible.

No criticism here, just the observation of a change in profile. And for those who are astonished by the success of high-end hotels (which is what I was a bit at the debit), let’s not forget the differences in purchasing power between countries: for an American tourist, what seems expensive to a French person is not so much so (we’ll soon be telling you about the insane price increases in New York… ) according to their own frame of referenceL And what’s more, when they travel, American tourists are much more sensitive than French tourists to the big chains that reassure them, and to their loyalty programs that enable them to pay for vacations with the points they accumulate during the rest of the year on business trips and leisure weekends.

MKG Consulting confirms that restaurants and museums have been the big losers in this story. The Louvre, for example, saw a 22% drop in attendance, and Disneyland Paris recently admitted to a significant drop in admissions.

As for cabs, they don’t seem to have had the expected impact either. The driver I spoke to a few days after the opening ceremony said, “There’s the Olympics, we’ve got reserved lanes, everything’s in place for us to have a great summer…but the tourists are missing”. Wrong: the tourists were there, but they preferred public transport. In any case, for this one, the analysis was clear: “there are no customers, and what’s more, I have to refuse certain rides trips in the hyper-centre because the traffic is so complicated, so I’m finally going on vacation tomorrow”.

Once again, nothing beats empirical observation. During the few days I spent in Paris, I noticed the following:

– Around me, café terraces are packed to the rafters, but there’s very little in the way of restaurants, mainly cold drinks and fast snacks. But with two Olympics sites and the Eiffel Tower 300m away, that’s not a reliable indicator.

– in areas that are usually touristy (Madeleine, Opéra etc…) bars and restaurants that are normally full year-round with locals and in summer with tourists were struggling to fill their rooms to more than 30%, while 700m further on the street was festive… where he had the games. The bars were doing better, at least some of them were, but for the restaurants it was a disaster.

Let’s sum it up:

1°) The expected tourists came to Paris, at least in quantity.

2°) If the quantity was there, it was not the typical profile known and expected by the tourism players, with objectives and consumption patterns different from the “usual” tourists, which penalized restaurants but also certain shops, the cultural sector and cabs (which moreover had to cope with traffic difficulties and closed roads).

3°) Given the very reason for the presence of these tourists, the city was polarized in terms of occupation: the Olympic sites, the fan zone and a few popular neighborhoods were packed to the rafters, while the rest of the city was totally empty, giving us very contrasting images of what was going on in the city, depending on where we were.

Then there’s the question of the losses incurred by Delta and Air France in particular. Perhaps these airlines have been shunned, perhaps others have been more aggressive on fares, perhaps the Olympic Games excuse has served to mask another, deeper problem. At this stage, it’s the only thing we can’t explain.

But be warned… the Paris Olympics weren’t just in Paris. Lille and Marseille clearly experienced a different situation, with, for example, hotel bookings doubling in Lille, restaurant owners working extremely well and hotel bookings up 20% in Marseille. But with a lower level of traffic than in the city of light, they had much more room for improvement.

Were the absentees wrong?

Politicians have stigmatized those primarily responsible for this semi-failure: Parisians, who all left the city at the same time and, of course, did not leave it to go to another city hosting events.

But that’s a bit of a hasty assumption: the fact that Parisians all go away in the summer is nothing new, they’re just away more spread out than usual, but they’re not away for longer. Then, of course, there’s the impact of remote work.

Speaking of this, let’s talk about remote work and, more generally, the disastrous communication from the organization and public authorities in the run-up to the games.

Who said that Parisians should encourage remote work at all costs, because getting around would be very complicated, and that the city was best left to those who were going to see the Olympics? Who said that users of certain metro stations would be better off not using them for the duration of the Games? Who was responsible for the lack of clear communication, right up to the last minute, about restricted areas, QR codes, who was concerned and who wasn’t, and when?

With messages like these, it’s hardly surprising that Parisians were fleeing the city, especially as vacations can’t be planned a week in advance. So Parisians made do with the information they had, or rather the lack of information they had in the spring: vague, worrying messages and communication that said “leave the city to those who come for the games”. And if the organization didn’t want to convey this message, that’s at least how it was understood.

And if everything went well and the atmosphere was good (if not lucrative for everyone), it’s also because the Parisians had left.

With over 20,000 inhabitants per km2, Paris is one of the 5 most densely populated cities in the world (13,000 for Tokyo and 6,000 for New York, for comparison). So if all the Parisians are staying, and you add in the tourists, the traffic restrictions etc., chances are that the city would have been unliveable, with all the effects one can imagine on the atmosphere, the experience etc.

An unproven economic success, but an investment in the future?

At this stage, we’re talking about a real success in terms of atmosphere and an “immediate” mixed economic success. But won’t the image of the city that the whole world has seen on TV, the sites, the city, the rave reviews in the press… does all this constitute the best possible campaign to promote tourism in Paris for years to come?

This is, of course, the logical and totally rational bet made by the organizers!

Of course, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t work, but there are limits.

The first, as we’ve seen, is that Paris remains an expensive city (even if there are far worse things to do) and that, for the city’s entire economy to benefit, it requires a certain type of tourist. So, of course, that’s a pretty broad target worldwide, but it’s not everyone, and some of those who have been thrilled by what they’ve seen on TV will never be able to afford to come or not with a level of spending that this time would satisfy everyone.

The second is that Paris is already one of the most visited cities in the world, with fairly high occupancy rates, so the capacity to accomodate new tourists is not infinite. And with prices in line with demand, it’s doubtful that the cost of accommodation will deter many. On the other hand, cities like Lille and Marseille have greater margins, but will they have a retroactive JO effect? It’s doubtful, as Paris has taken the spotlight, and with no events to host, it’s likely to be back to normal for these cities.

Finally, the same applies to restaurants, which generally do very well in summer too. Their capacity to welcome more customers is not infinite either, and in any case nothing will ever compensate for the customers they didn’t get this summer, putting some of them in a worrying financial situation.

So a positive impact on tourism in the years to come, certainly, but not an explosion.

Bottom line

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games will undoubtedly stay in everyone’s mind, whether we were blown away by what we saw on TV or for the experience lived by those who were there. For that alone, we can already say that they were a major success and perhaps the greatest games ever organized in terms of spectacle, setting and atmosphere.

The economic impact on tourism is less clear-cut. Today, we can’t say that it’s been a huge success, at least for all the professions, but we dare to hope that it’ll be a worthwhile investment for the future, even if the margin for progress isn’t all that great.

In any case, the star of these games was not, for once, sport but the organizing city, whether you like it or not.

But if Paris attracted the spotlight this summer, both positively and sometimes, perhaps, negatively, we mustn’t forget that other cities that were less talked about were strangely empty this summer. For example, we found New York strangely empty, and it wasn’t because of the Olympics, but because of other factors that we’ll soon decipher.

Photo : Paris 2024 by kovop via Shutterstock