Despite a slightly more stable situation than in 2020 at the same time, hotels in the Ile-de-France region are still penalized by the lack of tourists, according to INSEE figures released on Thursday January 13.
The number of hotel nights remains “at a level much lower than that observed before the start of the health crisis”, explains INSEE on Thursday, revealing that hotels in the region recorded 10.3 million overnight stays in the third quarter of 2021 , compared to almost double in the third quarter of 2019 (19.2 million in the third quarter of 2019).
The occupancy rate in hotels in the Ile-de-France region is still lower than the national average, and “stands at nearly 47% in July and rises to more than 57% in September, reaching the best result since March 2020” according to the INSEE. At that time, in fact, it was around 32% in September 2020.
A rate which, however, still remains “far below the average rate recorded at this time of the year before the health crisis” according to INSEE, which was “around 83.5% on average between 2017 and 2019” in the region.
A hollow in the heart of summer
While the month of June was an opportunity for French people from outside the Ile-de-France region and foreign tourists to return to Paris, the heart of summer was not particularly a good season for all that. Thus, while the number of hotel nights jumped by 52% between June and July 2021 (compared to +61% in mainland France), it then fell by 2.2% between July and August, while it was up nationally (+15%).
On the other hand, September was a good month for hotels in the region, since the number of overnight stays rose by 15% in Ile-de-France, when it fell by 23% in the rest of the region. France.
A growth that INSEE explains in part by the “return of business customers on which hotel attendance in the Ile-de-France region depends heavily”, in particular linked “to the resumption of trade fairs”. In fact, the share of business customers then amounted to 55% of total overnight stays, the same level as in September 2019.