Extremist attacks, strikes and floods kept foreign tourists away from the French capital in the first half of the year and cost the Paris region tourism industry about 750 million euros (US$849.38 million) in lost revenue, officials said yesterday.
“It’s time to realize that the tourism sector is going through an industrial disaster. This is no longer the time for communication campaigns, but to set up a relief plan,” Paris region tourist board president Frederic Valletoux said in a statement yesterday.
Valletoux said massive investments were needed to protect jobs in the sector and urged French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault to quickly meet with local tourism officials.
Photo: Reuters
About 500,000 people in Ile-de-France have jobs linked to tourism, making it the biggest industry in the region
France, which is seeking to revive its economy, depends heavily on tourism, which generates more than 7 percent of the nation’s GDP and more than 13 percent of that of the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, the world’s most visited city.
France’s tourism industry has suffered since Islamic State gunmen killed 130 people in an attack in Paris last year. It was dealt further blows last month when a gunman drove a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on July 14 in the Riviera city of Nice. Two weeks later, two men killed a priest in a small town in Normandy. Strikes against a controversial labor reform and floods in June also deterred tourists.
Nightly hotel stays were down 8.5 percent in the Paris Ile-de-France region in the first half, with an 11.5 percent decline for foreign tourists and a 4.8 percent drop for French tourists.
Japanese visitors were down 46.2 percent in the first half compared with the same period last year, while Russians were down 35 percent, Chinese down 19.6 percent, and Americans down 5.7 percent, the statement said.
France is the most-visited country in the world, with about 85 million foreigners last year, including 16 million in Paris.
Weak activity in France contributed to a fall in first-half operating profit for French group AccorHotels.
Air France-KLM has said it expects its unit revenues to decline last month and this month, partly due to the situation in France.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
Protectionism: US trade chief Katherine Tai said the hikes would help to counter unfair trade practices from China, while boosting domestic clean energy investments US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) defended stiff tariff hikes against countries such as China, saying that paired with investment, they were a “legitimate and constructive” tool for reinvigorating domestic industries. Tai’s comments come a week after sharp tariff increases on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), EV batteries and solar cells took effect — with levies down the line on other products also recently finalized. The latest moves targeting US$18 billion in Chinese goods come weeks before next month’s US presidential election, with Democrats and Republicans pushing a hard line on China as competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies. In an interview on Thursday
RSS