At a time of internal malaise and complaints about pension reform, as well as serious geopolitical tensions, the large number of tourists was a beacon of light and optimism for French society. Yes, France and Paris remain important tourist attractions, with a lively, even dynamic, vibe since last year. From April to September 2022, hotels, campsites and other accommodations recorded 10 million overnight stays, an unprecedented number of arrivals, according to a related Deutsche Welle publication. The increase from 2019, which is considered the base year before the coronavirus health crisis, is 4%. Hotel and campsite occupancy from June to August 2022 was 3% above pre-crisis levels.

New for the country is the dynamics of domestic tourism. Three out of four overnight stays in the French countryside last year were French tourists. In this way, domestic tourism has filled in the gaps still existing in international tourism, such as the reduction in the arrival of tourists from the UK or even from Asia, Russia and China. Paris, which had 33 million visitors in 2022, is approaching a record of 38 million in 2019. Of these, 4.5 million tourists visited the city’s 14 museums and about 2 million visited the Arc de Triomphe. France may justly triumph by saying that “the tourists are back.” It is worth noting that the blow to the French tourism sector has been very strong due to the pandemic, which in 2020 deprived Paris, a particularly popular destination, of revenues of 15.5 billion euros. Foreign tourists have fallen sharply, with 33.1 million fewer visitors to the French capital compared to 2019, and other destinations in France and Europe as a whole appear to have suffered a similar blow due to the health crisis.