On a warm August day, the world’s most famous boulevard, the Champs-Elysées, is heaving. Li-na and Zhangli from Shanghai, laden with bags from designer stores, are here to go shopping, while James from Illinois wants to climb the Arc de Triomphe, reports The Guardian.
“I’ve already done the Eiffel Tower, Sacré Coeur and Notre Dame,” he says. “Tomorrow it’s Versailles.” Bernard, from neighbouring Belgium, is in the French capital for a short break “because it’s beautiful and not far by train”.
In the tree-lined street’s grand flagship stores and myriad eateries you can almost hear the collective sigh of relief: after a “catastrophic” 2016 for tourism following a series of terrorist attacks in France, the visitors are back – and in record numbers.
According to figures for the first half of 2017, released this week by the Regional Tourism Committee (CRT), the number of people making a trip to the French capital and surrounding Île de France region has hit a 10-year high. Paris region hoteliers registered 16 million guests, the highest number for the same period in the past decade. Visitors to the city and Île-de-France region rose by 14.6%, and increased by 6.4% in other parts of France.
Despite a spate of robberies targeting Asian tourists that led to an offer from the Chinese police to patrol the city in 2014, Japanese visitors increased by 40.5% and Chinese by 29.5%.
About 1.14 million Americans also came, an increase of 20% on the previous year, as well as more Germans and Spaniards. While Paris remains popular with the British, their number dropped by 1.7% in the first half of this year. “No doubt due to the uncertainties around Brexit,” tourism officials reported.