On this Monday in January, behind the displays of the “Shopping & Welcome Center” at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, the saleswomen chat among themselves and linger on their cell phones. Dior creams, La Mère Poulard pancakes and L’Occitane perfumes have difficulty finding buyers in this store dedicated to Asian customers. “There are a lot fewer people than before”, confides a saleswoman.
This 3,800 square meter space, located on Boulevard Haussmann, welcomed, before the Covid-19 pandemic, between 100 and 120 groups of Asian tourists per day, led by guides paid by commission on purchases, as recounted by one study of 2020 from the University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne. The store, which provides direct tax refunds, closed at the start of the health crisis. It reopened in May 2023.
In the rest areas of the basement, where Chinese tourists gather after their purchases, we meet Fang Wang, 30 years old. She lives in Nanjing and is finishing a four-day stay in the capital, with a group of thirty people: the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles, the Pantheon, the Bateaux-Mouches… “We all love Paris, its monuments, the architecture. That’s wonderful. And then, the people are beautiful, they seem to do a lot of sport”she says, laughing, delighted with her stay, even if there have been, twice since their arrival, “flight problems” near the bus.
Shortfall for the trade balance
In France, the number of Chinese visitors has fallen significantly since the pandemic, and the recovery is slower than expected. In 2019, 2 million people came to discover the country, which represented more than 3.5 billion euros in revenue. In 2023, these should reach one billion euros. On average, travel agency flows have recovered by 40% compared to pre-Covid, notes Atout France. A shortfall for the trade balance, especially since the Chinese spend a lot. If, in 2019, they represented 3% of arrivals in France, they accounted for 7% of tourist revenue.
Does France make people dream less? The answer is more nuanced. First, the recovery is recent: China’s borders only reopened in January 2023, and its population has favored local stays. Then, French consular services had difficulty satisfying visa requests, as part of a new procedure.
“The situation has improved”, assured the former Minister of Tourism, Olivia Grégoire, during a press conference in China, where she went on January 4 and 5, in order to “promoting the France destination”, according to the language used by professionals in the sector. It now takes three or four weeks to obtain a visa, and not three months, as in the summer of 2023. The Franco-Chinese year of cultural tourism, launched at the beginning of 2024 with artistic programming in China and France, should also be window office.
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