The 2024 Olympics were a success for Paris but a calamity for some businesses

PARIS (AP) — Parisian business owners and hotel managers were promised a summer like no other. Millions of tourists would flood the French capital for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, generating huge profits for the region.

With the Games officially over, the time has come to run the numbers. And many in the Paris service industry say they had one of their worst summers ever — notably because of security restrictions around city-center Olympic venues.

Tom Denaive, who runs a jewelry store located between the Louvre Museum and Place de la Concorde — which hosted multiple Olympic events — said the season was nothing short of “dramatic.”

In mid-June, the city closed the nearest metro station, then access to the scenic Tuileries Garden. A week before the opening ceremony on the River Seine, the nearby rue de Rivoli, a major pedestrian and commercial artery, was shut down.

“It was a dead street,” Denaive said. “I felt like we were back to the COVID days.”

Even the Louvre Museum reported a 22% drop in visits during the Olympic Games, and a 45% drop during the two weeks leading up to the opening ceremony compared to the same period a year ago.

Disappointment was also felt steps away on rue Saint-Honoré, home to some of Paris’ most prestigious hotels and haute couture shops.

“I have all the records from last year and we didn’t match a single one,'' said Marina Orlando, store manager at French luxury candle brand Diptyque. Orlando said sales in August were down 29% year on year.

“We were given a whole serenade about the Olympics, that it was going to be incredible. ... Some of us didn’t go on vacation, it was a huge logistical effort so that we could all be present on D-Day,” she said. In the end, she added, they had a store largely empty of customers.

Tourists did come to Paris in large numbers. Government data released last week show that some 1.7 million international visitors came during the Olympic period, up 13% compared with the previous year, and another 1.4 million French tourists visited the capital, up 26%. In addition, the Olympics drew millions more visitors who traveled to Paris for the day.

“I think that our country’s bet has paid off,” Olivia Grégoire, who leads the ministry charged with companies, tourism and consumption, told a news conference last week. Grégoire said France as a whole was on track to maintain — and potentially surpass — last year’s record-breaking tourism numbers.

But shopping was not the visitors' priority, shop owners and managers said. “They were here for the sports,” Orlando said.

Denaive agreed. He said that tourists “spent so much on hotels, flights, tickets ... they didn't have much of a budget left for shopping.”

Many visitors were struggling to get to shops and restaurants even if they wanted to, because Paris chose to host Olympic events in the heart of the capital rather than building an Olympic park outside the city center.

Protecting those venues involved a boosted security apparatus, deploying up to 45,000 police officers backed by a 10,000-strong contingent of soldiers and reinforcements from more than 40 countries.

Most Parisians and visitors welcomed the security measures, but not the metal-fence barriers erected on both sides of the River Seine that made the city hard to navigate.

Only those with a QR code were granted permission to pass police checkpoints, making it nearly impossible for those without one to commute between the city’s south and north, except by metro. Permission for the precious code could take days to obtain.

For Patrick Aboukrat, whose association represents 190 shopkeepers and restaurant owners in Paris’ central Marais neighborhood, the Olympics were “more than catastrophic.” From mid-June to the end of July, sales were down roughly 35% to 40% on average in the area, he said.

Aboukrat, who owns a fashion store, said the ready-to-wear industry was particularly hit, with an unexpectedly bad summer sales period. The city was quiet ahead of the Olympics, he recalled. “We expected to have a stronger activity than usual. We found ourselves with stocks to sell off and a very low cash flow.”

Aboukrat, like many others who talked to The Associated Press, eventually decided to close his store early in the summer. “It was not worth it, and those near me who remained open told me it was empty.”

Something similar happened at the Île de la Cité, the small island in the Seine where Notre Dame Cathedral sits. There, most merchants lost 40% to 50% of their turnover, according to Patrice Lejeune, president of the island's merchants' association.

The area was particularly difficult to reach during most of the Olympics as it was surrounded by security barriers.

Officials have said the restrictions were necessary to guarantee everyone’s safety.

Grégoire, from the tourism ministry, downplayed potential losses, saying that ”we often come across people who complain.”

On June 14, the government announced the creation of a commission to handle financial compensation requests from businesses claiming they were impacted negatively by the Games. Grégoire said it would apply only to those located within the perimeters targeted by security measures. The commission will start assessing requests in January.

Jean-Marc Banquet d’Orx, president of a union representing more than 2,000 hotels, restaurants and cafes in Paris, said everyone will eventually feel the benefits of the investments made in the city ahead of the Games.

“We can’t stop grumpy people,” Banquet d’Orx said. “But to those who complain, I say: The Olympics will have an impact on the years to come, not immediately.”