Paris hotel bosses are hitting the panic button as they face a booking blunder with loads of rooms empty ahead of the . They're fretting that punters reckon a will cost an arm and a leg, leading to a tourist dodge. AirFrance is bracing for a whopping £152m hit if folks give flying to Paris a miss, with the AirFrance-KLM Group saying: "International markets show a significant avoidance of Paris.
Travel between the city and other destinations is also below the usual June-August average as residents in France seem to be postponing their holidays until after the Olympic Games or considering alternative travel plans." They're banking on things getting back to normal post-Games, expecting a bounce-back in demand come late August and September. But right now, the City of Lights could be looking a bit dim with hotel occupancy rates slumping by up to 25 percent compared to last year's numbers, some surveys suggest.
Ze Hotel's director Aldric Duval chipped in with his two cents, saying: "I think the Olympic Games effect is counter-productive since everything is very expensive.", reports . He went on to say: "We explained to [tourists] that traffic restrictions were going to be complicated, that the price of a metro ticket was going to triple, that the tourist tax had tripled.
.. On top of that, the weather is difficult, so people are less inclined to come.
" According to Insee, France's official statistics office, hotels in the capital were on average 90.7 percent occupied last July. Re.
