Tourism in France: summer season should be exceptional this year

Atout France is an operator of the French government in charge of the development of tourism. Its objective it to promote tourism in France, complete operations of engineering and communication, and implement a policy based on competitiveness and quality of tourism businesses. To support its work, Atout France frequently releases analysis and trend keynotes about the state of tourism in France.

The French travel in France

 “The month of July opens the road to an exceptional season”. This is how Atout France commented the first tourism figures of the season. After the Covid-19 pandemic and two years marked by health restrictions that deeply impacted tourism travels, the agency analysed that departures of French and international clients “are sharply improving compared with the previous season, and reached levels registered before the health crisis”.

More precisely, for the 2022 summer season, French clients seem to re-engage with tourism travels in their country. According to a survey made by Atout France before the summer, 7 French citizens out of 10 declared their intention to travel in France, a +10 points compared to the same period last year. According to the operator, tourism is fulfilling again “its role as contributor to the balance of payments: the appetite of the French for departures abroad is ot as deep so far”.

 International tourists too

 Regarding international clients, Atout France note that “intents of stay reach levels close to or above figures from the 2019 season”. Conversion of intents into booking is clearly higher than the two previous years, with “progress from 20 to 30 points depending on the market, compared to the 2021 season”. Concretely, booked international overnight stays record a true momentum with a 34% growth compared to 2021 over the same period. Most present tourists in France are: the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Germans, and additionally a sharp return of British clients.

In this context, two indicators are of critical importance:

- air transport experiment a sharp rise: “arrivals and bookings are on the rise and predict a nice summer”;

- additionally, SNCF (the French national train company) is preparing its rail network for a record use this year: “22M tickets sold in July and August (18M for high speed trains + 4M for regional trains), a 10% rise compared to 2019”.

With such figures, Atout France says that outlooks for September are very positive and are “in line with the previous years, whether for the domestic market aspect or international markets”.

To know more

- Press release on the Atout France website

Photo credit: © Didier RITZMANN – stock.adobe.com