Could it be that Parisians bluntly tell travelers “do not come” Going to Paris during the Summer Olympics?
Or is it the sky-high prices for hotel rooms, house rentals, and rent? event tickets Turn away travelers?
For many reasons, many people— including residents — has avoided Paris in the run-up to the Olympics, despite predictions that a tourism boom is all but certain. Forecasts tend to focus on the number of people expected to attend the Olympics and ignore the number of visitors who will forego the Games.
John Grant, chief analyst at aviation intelligence firm OAG, said there was a common misconception that host cities would experience a surge in travelers during the Olympics.
“The phenomenon of the Olympics is that the local market is not liquid,” he said. Additionally, “the average business traveler who would normally be traveling at that moment would stop (and) stay home.”
London, Athens and Atlanta all saw declines in summer visitors when they hosted the Summer Olympics, Grant said.
“It never quite achieved and delivered the desired results,” he said.
Major airlines suffered heavy losses
None of this comes as a surprise, Grant said.
He said neither airline had significantly increased capacity compared with August last year – Air France had a 5% increase and Delta had no increase. Instead, their losses are related to fare pricing, he said.
“They have been persistent in trying to sell fares at a higher price than what the market demands,” he said, adding that airlines ended up discounting those fares to get as much revenue as possible.
John Grant of the OAG said not all airlines were hit by the Summer Olympics. Among the “winners,” he singled out Ryanair, which this summer significantly increased capacity to Paris.
Jakub Bolzycki | Noor Photos | Getty Images
In its June tourism barometer, the Paris Tourism Office expects international air arrivals to fall in all markets in the run-up to the Olympics, with a fall of 8% in June and nearly 15% in July compared with 2023.
The tourism board also expects visitor numbers to grow by 11% during the Olympics, driven by visitors from Europe (+24%) and North America (+15%), offset by sharp declines in arrivals from the Middle East (-42%) and Oceania (-30%).
Empty Airbnb and unsold tickets
Hotels are also feeling the impact of Paris’ summer economic slowdown, with occupancy rates expected to drop to 60% in early July, about 10 percentage points lower than in 2023, the Paris Tourist Office said.
Like airlines, many hotels have raised room rates to take advantage of the tourism boom, only to discount them after bookings slowed in the spring.
The Paris Tourism Bureau said that the average price in July this year still rose by nearly 70%, from 202 euros last year to 342 euros during the Olympics. Estimates from the travel price comparison website Trivago show that house prices in Paris have increased by 85% year-on-year and by 131% in Lille, where some of the Olympic basketball and handball competitions will be held.
Airbnb hosts are also cutting prices — some by more than 50%. A two-bedroom loft near Notre Dame slashed its nightly rate from $1,407 to $683 during the first week of the Olympics, below nightly rates in the fall.
Airbnb says the number of listings in Paris has reached an all-time high this summer, with enterprising Parisians jumping on the opportunity to make a killing while escaping the crowds. Consumption tendencies of sports tourists. Airbnb told CNBC that tens of thousands of people in host cities opened their homes for the first time.
However, the company declined to disclose the number of unbooked listings during the Olympics, instead telling CNBC Travel: “The 2024 Paris Olympics will be the largest hosted event in Airbnb’s history, with more guests staying in our local properties. The platform than any event All unprecedented.
Airbnb also said “domestic interest” in accommodation during the Olympics has never been as high as it was in the weeks leading up to the Paris Games.
“The scope of the Olympics is too broad”
Last-minute travelers can still buy tickets to the Paris Olympics. The Paris 2024 press office told CNBC that as of Thursday, 10 million tickets had been sold, of which 8.95 million had been sold or allocated.
There are more tickets available on the growing resale market, with a large number of expensive tickets attracting few buyers, according to an analysis. Financial Times.
In the age of “sports tourism” and activity-focused, experience-led travel, it seems surprising that a top global event – with the world’s top athletes competing in one of the most popular cities – is absent. .
But not Grant.
“The Olympics is so broad… it’s not a specific event,” he said. “There is a gold medal in tennis, but it’s not Wimbledon.”
Plus, there are too many incidents, he said.
“You can’t say they’re not good quality because they are (but) they’re so ordinary.”
— CNBC’s Zenith Wong contributed to this report.
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