Hesitation from global visitors to holiday in France following the November 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 dead has only intensified since the attack in Nice which killed 85 last month.
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As for the hotel industry, it has taken a big hit: for the first half of 2016, the number of hotel nights booked by foreign visitors dropped by 10 percent, according to Matthias Fekl, Junior Minister for the promotion of tourism, and this trend should amplify for July and August.
More than 80m people visit France each year and the industry generates seven per cent of its GDP and around €150bn in revenues.
Fekl noted the vast majority of those being deterred are high-spending visitors from the United States, Asia and the Gulf region, while European visitors – who account for roughly 80% of France’s tourist trade – are still coming.
France’s tourism industry, an important driver of its economy, has suffered since Islamic State gunmen killed 130 people in an attack in Paris previous year.
Global flight bookings to Nice dropped 57 percent compared with the previous year from the date of the attack to July 23, while planned arrivals this month and in September were down by about a fifth for France as a whole, according to travel-data specialist ForwardKeys, citing reservation numbers through July 23. It was dealt further blows in July when a militant killed 85 people by ramming a truck into crowds in the French Riviera resort of Nice.
He said the impact was most felt in Paris and the region around the capital.
Two weeks later, two men killed a priest in a small town in Normandy.
Last month, Air France-KLM Group expressed concern about France’s standing as a tourist hotspot after the attacks and Paris-based Accor, Europe’s largest hotel operator, said first-half profit fell in part due to the killings.
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Tourism professionals also say negative perceptions about France have been fuelled by violent street protests this year as well as robberies targeting Asian visitors.
