Was it the Parisians who bluntly told travelers “don’t come” to Paris in the course of the Summer Games?
Or did sky-high prices for hotel rooms, house rentals and event tickets turn travelers away?
For a mess of reasons, many individuals — including residents — avoided Paris within the build-up to the Olympic Games, despite prognostications that a travel boom was all but assured. Forecasts often concentrate on the number of individuals expected to attend the Games, while ignoring the variety of travelers who’re turned off by them.
It’s a standard misconception that host cities see an explosion of travelers across the Olympic Games, said John Grant, chief analyst on the aviation intelligence company OAG.
“The phenomena of the Olympics is that the local market doesn’t travel,” he said. Plus “the regular business traveler who would normally be traveling during that moment in time, stops [and] stays at home.”
London, Athens and Atlanta all saw a drop in summer visitors once they hosted the Summer Games, said Grant.
“It just never quite achieves and delivers what’s expected,” he said.
Big losses by key airlines
Air France flagged problems earlier this month, announcing on July 1 that traffic to and from Paris was lagging behind other major European cities. Not only was interest down, but “international markets show a big avoidance of Paris,” the corporate stated.
Similarly, Delta Air Lines can be projecting an enormous hit — upwards of $100 million in revenue — due to a drop in travel volume to France as a direct results of the Summer Games.
“Unless you are going to the Olympics, people aren’t going to Paris,” CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC.
None of it is a surprise, said Grant.
Neither airline increased capability much — Air France by 5%, and Delta by none — compared with last August, he said. Slightly, their losses relate to fare pricing, he said.
“They have been holding out attempting to sell fares at a better price than market demand would support,” he said, adding that the airlines eventually discounted these fares to grab whatever revenue they might.
In its June tourism barometer, Paris’ tourism board projected a drop in international air arrivals across all markets in the course of the lead-up to the Olympic Games — down 8% in June and nearly 15% in July, compared with 2023.
The tourism board can be expecting an 11% increase in arrivals in the course of the Games, spurred by visitors from Europe (+24%) and North America (+15%) but offset by sharp drops in arrivals from the Middle East (-42%) and Oceania (-30%).
Empty Airbnbs and unsold tickets
Hotels, too, are feeling the pinch of Paris’ summer slowdown, with occupancy rates expected to drop to 60% in early July, down some 10 points from 2023, in response to Paris’ tourism board.
Just like the airlines, many hotels raised rates to reap the benefits of the tourism bump, only to discount them following a spring season of slow bookings.
Still, average rates are up nearly 70% this July, from 202 euros last 12 months to 342 euros in the course of the Olympic period, Paris’ tourism board said. Estimates from the travel price comparison website Trivago show rates have jumped much more, up 85% 12 months on 12 months in Paris, and 131% in Lille, which is hosting a few of the Games’ basketball and handballs competitions.
OAG’s John Grant said not all airlines took successful due to the Summer Games. Among the many “winners,” he singled out Ryanair, which significantly increased capability to Paris this summer.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Airbnb hosts are also cutting rates — some by greater than 50%. A two-bedroom loft near the Notre Dame slashed its nightly rate from $1,407 to $683 in the course of the first week of the Games — which is lower than its nightly rate in the autumn.
Airbnb said listings in Paris reached an all-time high this summer, as enterprising Parisians jumped at the possibility to concurrently escape the crowds and money in on sports tourists’ propensity to spend.
Airbnb told CNBC that tens of hundreds of individuals in host cities had opened their homes for the primary time. But the corporate declined to say the variety of listings that remained unbooked in the course of the Games, as a substitute telling CNBC Travel that: “The Olympic Games Paris 2024 is ready to be the most important hosting event in Airbnb’s history, with more guests staying in local homes on our platform than at any event, ever before.”
Airbnb also said “domestic interest” for stays in the course of the Games has never been higher than within the weeks leading as much as Paris Games.
‘The Olympics is just too broad’
Last-minute travelers can still snag tickets to the Paris Games. Out of 10 million tickets on the market, 8.95 million have been sold or allocated as of Thursday, Paris’ 2024 press office told CNBC.
Still more can be found on the ever-growing resale market, where a glut of costly tickets are attracting few buyers, in response to an evaluation by the Financial Times.
In an era where “sports tourism” and event-focused, experience-led travel rule the day, it could appear surprising that the top of world competitions — through which the world’s top athletes are competing in certainly one of its hottest cities — didn’t end in a greater travel bump to its host city.
But to not Grant.
“The Olympics is just too broad … it isn’t a particular event,” he said. “There’s a tennis gold medal available, nevertheless it’s not Wimbledon.”
Plus, there are too many events, he said.
“You may’t say they are not good quality, because they’re [but] it’s just too generic.”
—CNBC’s Zenith Wong contributed to this report.
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.
