Paris Seeks to Recover Visitor Numbers After Attacks

Paris is adding hotels, museums, events, and attractions to attract more tourists.

The numbers to Paris are down, there’s no doubt about it. At the Rendezvous France travel conference in Montpellier, France, last week, Paris tourism officials said visitor numbers to the city have dropped roughly 10% from a year ago. 

That’s largely due to the Nov. 13, 2015 terrorist attacks, which killed 130 and wounded hundreds, as well as the Jan. 7, 2015, attacks, which killed 12 and wounded almost as many. More recently the March 22, 2016, terrorist attacks in Brussels, which killed 32 and wounded hundreds as well, also affected Paris.   

“Paris was extremely shaken following the events in January and November 2015…and really the consequence of this, of course, is it impacted tourism,” said Pierre Schapira, president of the Paris Convention & Visitors Bureau. 

“With Brussels…we have felt a drop in visitors visiting Paris. But the government is doing absolutely every it can to ensure safety and security.” 

Indeed, overall visitor numbers to Paris for 2015 were 45 million, nearly unchanged from the previous year, although American and Chinese visitors remained very supportive of the city. Paris officials said American visitation to the city was particularly strong last summer and reached over a million for the year. But after the Nov. 13 attacks, bookings dried up nearly completely during the Christmas and New Year’s period.  

While official tourism numbers for the quarter haven’t been released yet, it’s clear that Paris has not yet recovered from the attacks. But the city’s tourism officials vow things will soon return to normal, with a slew of new hotel openings, re-openings, and major special events lined up to spur visitor growth for the rest of the year. 

The good news is that visitation to France overall in 2015 was 84.5 million, up 0.9% from the previous year, making the country number-one overall for tourism. The number of American tourists also increased by 15.2%, to 3.6 million in 2015. 

As for Paris, officials hope the upcoming UEFA Euro 2016 soccer tournament, set for June 10-July 10 in the city, will provide some welcome relief as European nations gather to root for their national teams. Other major events that are expected to add to visitor numbers include annual Tour de France in July, followed by a series of events in 2017, including the World Men’s Handball Championship and the World Ice Hockey Championship. In 2018, Paris will host the Gay Games and the Ryder Cup.  

Major hotel openings or re-openings also are expected to spur more travelers to visit Paris, including the long-awaited reopening of The Ritz, delayed by a fire but expected to debut in its new form this May. In the same month, Marriott will open a Renaissance property in the city and Elegancia Hotels will debut the first floating hotel on the Seine, the Off-Paris Seine. 

That will set the stage for a slew of new hotel openings and re-openings in 2017, including the Okko Hotel (the first all-inclusive property in the city); the Sofitel Port de Sevre (a reopening); a Melia property at Charles de Gaulle Airport; La Samaritaine, a hotel housed in a former department store; and the refurbished Crillon Hotel (under Rosewood management). Yet another eagerly awaited property debuting in 2017 will be the reopening of the Lutetia, an art nouveau palace hotel located on the Left Bank.  

Several new museums already have opened in Paris over the past year or are scheduled to open this year. These include the revamped Rodin Museum, the Museum of Fashion, and the Philharmonie de Paris (a music museum). Later this year the revamped Maillol Museum (a museum of sculpture) and the Museum of Perfume will debut. Then next year the Hotel de la Marine, a palace on Place de la Concorde, will open as a museum dedicated to gastronomy.  

Paris also is making itself more accessible to visitors. This summer large sections of the Seine riverbank, on both the left and the right sides, will be closed to traffic from the Bastille all the way to the Eiffel Tower. In addition, the Champs d’Elysees will be car-free on the first Sunday of every month from May through September.  

On the national front, tourism officials hope two new promotions will help quell any lingering tourist fears and get travelers back to focusing on France’s many cultural attractions. Destination France-Le Grand Tour, a small booklet listing cultural events and attractions through July, made its debut in January, as did Destination Impressionism, a brochure highlighting exhibitions of impressionist painters in the Paris region and Normandy.   

It all adds up to a France that is still on track to reach its goal of 100 million tourists by 2020, according to national tourism officials. And Paris is expected to represent a major chunk of those visitors.