France Records 12.3% Tourism Growth This Year

In the first quarter of 2023, French hotels, other accommodation facilities and campsites saw an increase of 12.6% in overnight stays compared to last year.

The presence of British tourists in French accommodations has also increased during this time.

According to the National Institute for Statistics, (INSEE), there were also more than seven million overnight stays in hotels. SchengenVisaInfo.com reported that domestic tourists spent 2.1 million night, which represents a 7.7% increase. International tourists spent 4.8 million nights in French accommodation, which is 55.8% more than the first quarter 2022.

The rate increases were a boon for rich hotels, as overnight stays increased by 31.4%. Unclassified hotels saw a decrease in occupancy - it dropped by 2.7%.

Ile-de-France saw a 37.4% increase in hotel occupancy compared to the first three months of 2022. This translates into four million more overnight stays. In urban provinces, the number nights spent increased by 15.1%, resulting in 1.9 millions more overnight stays.

The occupancy rates differ between zones. Coastline hotels and ski mountains hotels both recorded minor increases, namely 6,1 and 3,4%, respectively. The decrease in resident occupancy partially offset the increase in overnight stays by non-residents.

"Business attendance increased sharply in Q1 2023 (+17.3 per cent, representing 3.1 million additional overnight stays) compared to the same period of the last year, which was highly impacted by the sanitary crisis. Despite this rise, business attendance share kept decreasing slowly, going from 48.8 per cent in Q1 2022 to 48 per cent in Q1 2023," INSEE mentions.

According to the same source, overnight stays by Brits have increased by 102.5 percent. The number of nights spent by German tourists increased by 41.7%, and Dutch tourists spent 9.7% more. Americans spent 62.3 percent more in French hotels over the first three month period.

The occupancy rate of hotels by non-residents increased by 55.8%, but the domestic tourist attendance grew slower at 7.7%.

In the metropolitan area of France there was a 1.6% increase in people who stayed in holiday accommodation and other short-stay accommodations, while tourist residences saw a 0.8% decrease.

Source: schengenvisainfo.com