Paris suffered a sharp decline in tourist numbers and revenue in the wake of November’s terror attacks but now a new campaign is hoping to bring visitors back to the French capital.
Japanese and Italians are being particularly targeted by the initiative as they are apparently the nationalities who have been most affected by the resulting security worry issues.
Drop in prices
Some Parisian hotels have dropped their prices by 50% with a night's stay in the Montmartre area now costing €50 instead of €100. This comes after a year on year drop in tourist numbers of 22% in December for the Paris region was revealed last week.
Although a total of 15.6 million foreign nationals visited the region in 2015, the figure for the previous year was 15.7 million. However, despite the attacks €21 billion was added to the Paris region's economy by tourists in 2015.
Iconic attractions
Some of the biggest and most iconic Parisian attractions have seen visitor numbers fall due to fears that their high profiles may make them targets for new attacks. Last year saw a drop of 4.8% in visitors for the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower had a 2.6% drop and the Orsay museum suffered 1.2% fewer visits.
Positive news
Brits represent the second-biggest group of non-French tourists in Paris behind Americans, and their numbers still amounted to more than two million visits over the course of 2015. As well as this, bucking the trend of some other nationalities, the number of American visitors actually rose by 5.6% and there were 49.1% more Chinese visitors than the year before.
Chairman of the tourist committee, Frédéric Valletoux, told The Times newspaper: “Clearly the Chinese are less afraid. We have to take initiatives and to explain to those who are afraid that Paris is a safe destination.”
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Date Created: 23/02/2016
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