Paris, which hosts the 2024 Olympic Games between July 26 and Aug. 11, does not need to build much infrastructure or hotels to get ready for the games and sports fans, according to experts on tourism in the French capital.
During the World Travel Market held in London’s ExCeL convention center, Christophe Decloux, CEO of Comité Régional du Tourisme Paris Ile-de-France — or Paris Region Tourism Board — said “95% of the Olympic sites already exist. All we need to build is the athletes’ village and a swimming pool; that’s it.”
Paris last hosted the Olympics 100 years ago in 1924, but unlike some other host cities already has in place the vast majority of the hotels where spectators will stay.
IHG Hotels & Resorts’ 470-room Intercontinental Paris Le Grand finished a major overhaul in 2021, and the 192-room Paris Marriott Champs-Elysées finished its makeover at the beginning of 2023.
Hotels opened in 2023 and will do so in 2024, but there is not the major development of hotels that there might be for other major events in cities not enjoying Paris’ centuries-old reputation and cultural history.
Decloux said tourism executives in Paris are focused on ensuring the Paris Olympics have a legacy, a concern of most Olympic Games held over the past 30 years.
“Paris already receives approximately 50 million tourists per year, so the games are not about bringing in a higher number, and London was the same,” he said.
He added that this was not true for the cities of Athens and Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the games in 2004 and 2016, respectively.
Both of those cities were under the microscope in terms of whether they would be ready for the games with all of the necessary infrastructure developed.
“We are less preoccupied with first-time arrivals to Paris, but rather the 80% of repeaters. We know everyone will want to see the Eiffel Tower once in their lives,” he said.
Identifying Events
In the lead-up to mega events such as the Olympics, tourism executives consider infrastructure and hotel planning and how arrivals manage their booking journeys, according to Stuart Wareman, senior vice president of global experiences, events and sponsorship at Accor, France and Europe’s largest hotel company.
“Travelers now identify themselves in terms of what they do, not always where they go,” he said. “The order of booking a trip used to be flights first, then accommodation, but now very often the event is first. The incremental value of events cannot be underestimated.”
Joss Croft, CEO of trade association UKinbound, worked for VisitBritain when London hosted the Olympic Games in 2012. He agreed with Decloux’s conclusion that the largest challenge in hosting events is the event’s legacy.
"The brand of the [United Kingdom] is history, heritage and tradition, so we worried if there would be brand alignment with Londoners or a displacement of them during the two weeks of the games, but that did not happen,” he said. “Do your legacy work before the games start, not afterwards.”
Croft said events can attract a type of visitor who has not traditionally come to a destination.
“The Olympics are a one-off, and it is a very city-oriented event,” he said.
Another major event UKinbound partnered with was the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. Liverpool hosted the contest on behalf of Ukraine, which was unable to host due to the Russian invasion.
“Liverpool is a city known for its music since The Beatles, but even so there were initiatives such as EuroLearn, a program aimed at schoolchildren,” Croft said. “There also often are improvements of infrastructure and branding, which must have benchmarks that can be measured.”
Music and sporting events have equal weight, Wareman said. He added he realized the sheer magnitude of such events in 2023 when he attended one evening of the British Summer Time Hyde Park event in London. That event was held over three weekends in June and July 2023.
“Adele was performing on that day. That was 65,000 people, and the day before, Guns n’ Roses played there to the same number. Then there was the Wimbledon tennis going on, too, and Kings of Leon played the 02 Arena to another 20,000,” he said.
The city-centric aspect of some events requires focus, too, Decloux said.
“In London [for its Olympic Games], 90 people worked only on the customer experience. Everything was done to keep visitors inside the Olympics bubble,” he said.
Decloux added another initiative and series of events in Paris in 2024 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Impressionism art movement.