This summer “35 million French people went on vacation”, that is seven out of ten French people, against six out of ten French people last year, the minister said on Monday during a press conference.
“The very good results of the summer are all the more striking as the conditions have not always been easy”, underlined Olivia Grégoire, recalling the heat wave, the fires, the inflation or the lack of manpower. work in the hotel and catering industry.
Proof of this summer success, spending on French credit cards is up 10% compared to 2019 in hotels and restaurants.
SNCF sold 23 million tickets in July/August, 10% more than before the pandemic. Leisure parks, for their part, posted a turnover up 18% in July.
Hotels increased their average revenue per room (RevPar) by 22.2% compared to 2019 and even by more than 30% for the Ile-de-France and PACA regions, driven by American and Gulf customers, lovers of five-star hotels.
Campsites are not to be outdone with an increase in overnight stays of 5 to 7% compared to 2019, in particular thanks to the return of tourists from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, but also from the British.
According to Atout France, 25 million foreign visitors came to France in July/August, which represents 15 billion euros in revenue.
As for the concern of certain tourism players about the repayment of their state-guaranteed loan (PGE) contracted during the pandemic, the minister recalled that it was always possible to “get closer to credit mediation”.
“Across the tourism sector as a whole, nearly 120,000 companies have subscribed to a PGE for a total amount of just over 12 billion euros,” she said.
“As of June 30, 10% of PGEs were reimbursed in full in the tourism sector,” she added, recalling that companies have until 2026 to reimburse them.
Olivia Grégoire recalled that tourism represents “a locomotive of our economy”, “more than 8% of GDP” and “two million direct and indirect jobs”. “We intend to remain the world’s number one destination,” she added.
