Paris (CNN) – Summer is in full swing in Paris and the square leading to the Louvre is busy with vendors selling water or Eiffel Tower souvenirs. Among them, US tourist Chris Walkley is enjoying his first visit to France, taking selfies with his girlfriend at the art museum’s glass pyramid.
“Paris was definitely famous,” says Walkley, of Boston. “The food is great. Everyone was very welcoming.”
For Walkley, traveling to France is a symbol of getting his life back as it was after two years of restrictions and disruptions caused by the pandemic. “I feel like things are back on track,” he says with a smile.
For France, Walkley’s presence is a symbol of hope.
He is just one of thousands of Americans expected to visit Paris this summer, bringing widespread relief to a tourism industry battered by Covid and the loss of wealthy Russians who regularly flock to the places. mostly due to sanctions.
North America is estimated to be the biggest contributor to Paris’ tourism market this summer, according to the city’s government, with booking levels almost back to pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
“The Americans are doing the work,” said Frédéric Hocquard, Paris’s deputy tourism mayor.
“It means they are coming back en masse with a lot of money to spend.”
They’re back!
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Even outside of Paris, from north to south, tourist workers and government officials across France are singing the same enthusiastic message — the Americans are back!
This was the front page headline of the Nice Matin, a prominent French Riviera newspaper, on July 6. “They are spending without counting after two years of restraint,” he reported.
On average, American tourists, visiting mostly in groups, are spending $402 (400 euros) per day in France, bringing the budget for a 10-day visit to an impressive $7,687, well ahead of any other foreign tourists, according to a report. research company GfK did for Visa.
The Americans this year have a special focus on southern France along the Mediterranean Sea, whose beautiful coasts have long been a haven for wealthy Russian vacationers.
The Alpes-Maritime department, home to the likes of sun-kissed Nice and Cannes, is projected to lose $50.4 million in 2022 due to a lack of Russian tourists who have descended on towns such as Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, of according to a report published by the area’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry in March evaluating the impact of the war in Ukraine.
But those negative forecasts failed to play out, the trade association said, admitting that “the summer season is looking pretty good.”
Local officials and hotel owners on the ground in the French Riviera confirmed the unexpected rescue.
“It is true that there are certainly fewer Russians but all the others have replaced them,” said Jean-François Dieterich, mayor of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Six of the 61 Russian-owned properties frozen by the French government are in the small town of fewer than 1,500 residents, according to the French Finance Ministry.
“It was a great surprise because we felt that the lack of Russian clients would affect the hotel but in the end it was not,” said Bruno Mercadal, manager of Hotel Royal-Riviera, a five-star resort in Saint-Jean-Cap. -Equipment.
‘Travel revenge’
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Before the pandemic, Russian tourists made up 20% to 25% of the hotel’s clientele during the summer months, but this year they were all gone due to sanctions imposed on Russia.
Mercadal recalled the chaos that ensued shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine — Russian guests staying at the hotel had to pay in cash because their credit cards became useless after their country was kicked out of the SWIFT international payment system.
Now, Americans are flocking to the Mercadal hotel. US visitors usually represent about the same share of customers as the Russians before the pandemic, but this year for the month of June alone, the share of American guests jumped to 42%.
“This is pretty incredible,” said Mercadal.
The war in Ukraine has also had an impact on exchange rates, pushing down the value of the euro to its lowest levels against the dollar since 2002, meaning travel to Europe is much cheaper for Americans.
“It’s been this travel revenge that’s going on this year,” Mercadal said, referring to the phenomenon of people splurging on big trips as a way to compensate for the isolation imposed by Covid over the past two years.
“It’s a good surprise and compensates, to a large extent, [for] the lack of Russian customers,” he says.
