Forty minutes of speech by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to set a course; an afternoon at the Hôtel de la Marine in order to put the wind back in the sails: the tourism industry, just out of the pitfall of the health crisis, obtained confirmation, Thursday, November 4, of a form of return to political grace. Its weight in the French economy – 7.4% of gross domestic product, two million direct and indirect jobs – has appeared in full light since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the sector has long felt neglected, without a full-fledged minister to represent it or a clear strategy to make it grow.
If the billions of euros in aid poured out over the past eighteen months have consoled her, the reception at the Elysee swells her with pride and the announcement of a future “Tourism recovery plan”, which will be unveiled in mid-November, confirms it, even though many voices denounce the order of priorities and the alleged lack of preparation of the Destination France summit as well as of the government plan.
Comparisons abound with the “Fabius moment”, when François Hollande’s foreign minister was passionate about the sector, setting a target of 100 million annual international visitors (the counter stopped at nearly 90 million in 2019). “It was the first time in thirty years that a political tenor took care of tourism”, recalls Dominique Marcel, president of the Compagnie des Alpes and the Alliance France tourisme, made up of the heavyweights of French tourism. “ The moment we are living in is a new opportunity: public authorities and citizens have realized that tourism is an essential stake for our economy and our country ”, he adds.
Essential, but more and more crumbly, despite intangible fundamentals. France never misses an opportunity to claim to be the world’s leading tourist destination, ignoring the fact that it is clearly ahead of the United States, and more recently by Spain, in terms of foreign tourism receipts.
In recent years, it has ceded market share in favor of booming destinations (Southeast Asia, Dubai, Dalmatian or Turkish coasts), while more and more French people have spent their holidays and weekends abroad, attracted by low-cost flights and an offer deemed to be more competitive and exotic. The centrality of Parisian airports and the geographical position of France, on the route between Northern Europe and Spain, the European pillar of mass tourism, artificially inflate its attendance figures.
You have 74.31% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.