- Paris estimated 11 million people visited the city during the Olympics, fewer than expected.
- Photos show how Olympics-related closures and crowds affected visitors’ experiences.
- This story is part of “Road to Paris,” a series chronicling athletes’ and spectators’ experiences at the Olympic Games.
You might assume hosting the Olympics is great for a city’s economy thanks to an influx of visitors staying in hotels, dining out, and enjoying the sights.
But the financial benefits of hosting the Olympics aren’t so clear. The Games can end up costing a host country billions of dollars and can leave behind structures that sit empty for years.
Ahead of this year’s Olympics, Paris tried to mitigate losses by relying on existing venues and making detailed plans for the future of other structures, including the Olympic Village.
But it was unclear how many visitors would pay to travel to Paris during the Games. Several airlines said they anticipated a loss in revenue as fewer people appeared to be interested in traveling to Paris than in previous summers.
“Unless you’re going to the Olympics, people aren’t going to Paris,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC in July. He estimated the airline would lose up to $100 million because of the Olympics.
But as the Games got underway and spectators poured into the stadiums and streets, it became clear that Paris was still bustling — though with sports fans rather than shoppers.
A Forbes report said the French newspaper Le Monde estimated that 1.3 million people visited at least one so-called fan zone, or area for watching sports, in Paris during the Olympics. France’s tourism minister, Olivia Grégoire, told the French paper La Tribune Dimanche, per Reuters, that museum attendance was up by 25% compared with the same period in 2023 and that the number of hotel guests increased by 16%.
Visa, the Olympics’ payment partner, reported a 42% increase in customers in Paris during the first week of the Games compared with the same week last summer.
Overall, the Paris tourism office estimated 11 million people visited the city during the Olympics, down from its initial estimate of 15 million. Still, 11 million was a 4% increase from 2023’s visitor numbers for the same period, it said.
It remains to be seen whether visitor rates will stay consistent for the Paralympics, which kicked off in Paris this week. But as evidenced by other host cities, Paris is likely to feel the effects of these games for years to come.
Here’s what it looked like to be a tourist in Paris during this year’s Olympics.
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