Ghost town: Hotels in Paris are struggling with their lowest occupancy rate for 25 years.
Romance in Paris has rarely been cheaper as hotels cut prices to woo back tourists after the attacks in November. The average cost of a night has fallen 9 per cent compared with the same period last year and is set to drop further.
Concern has been fuelled by a study showing hotels struggling with their lowest occupancy rate for 25 years as visitors stay away amid fears of more attacks. The luxury sector, which has been hit particularly hard, says hopes of a revival were quashed by the Brussels attacks last month.
The Hotel Plaza Athenee, the luxury Parisian establishment where Alain Ducasse runs the restaurant, lost euros 53,000 in 12 hours after the Brussels attacks as customers cancelled reservations or left early. “Things were getting better slowly, but that’s finished,” Francois Delahaye, managing director of the Plaza Athenee, said.
MKG Consulting, the tourist industry specialist, found an average occupancy rate of 64 per cent in Parisian hotels, 11 per cent down on last year.
Philippe Gauguier, a partner at In Extenso, the consultancy owned by Deloitte, said that the rate was about 50 per cent in luxury hotels. “It’s very worrying,” he added.
Tourist industry officials initially reckoned that it would take about six months to overcome a slump in takings after the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris in November. Now they say it will be much longer. Fears have been exacerbated by a succession of reports that French police have foiled imminent terror attacks in Paris.
Officials have registered a particular drop in the number of Japanese, Italian, American and German visitors. They say that the claim by Donald Trump that Britain and Europe were “not safe places” did nothing to restore confidence. Last month Japanese tour operators planted a cherry tree in Paris and cleaned up litter in the city’s parks as they sought to portray the capital as a peaceful place. However, there was no upturn in bookings.
In an attempt to lift the gloom, the Paris regional tourist board has joined forces with Accor, the hotel group, and the SNCF, the state railway operator, to fund a advertising campaign under the slogan #ParisWeLoveYou. The campaign will feature a “selfie race”, with visitors to Paris encouraged to post their photographs on the ParisWeLoveYou Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The SNCF says that it is offering 22,000 cut-price tickets for international rail travellers, while Accor is cutting the price of rooms in its Paris hotels by up to 30 per cent over the next month. Other hotels are reducing their prices further. “We’re offering our rooms for euros 100 instead of more than euros 200,” a spokesman for the high-end Crystal Hotel on the Left Bank said. “And still the customers are not coming. It’s dramatic.”
Non-French visitors generated revenue of euros 21 billion for the Paris region tourist industry last year. Officials say that only a significant influx of football fans coming to watch the Euro 2016 championship in France this summer could yield a similar figure this year.
However, taxi drivers are doing their best to deter supporters, threatening yesterday (Tuesday) to block stadiums as part of their dispute with Uber and other mini-cab apps. The Times
