Spare a thought for French hoteliers

It’s important to keep an eye on what’s happening elsewhere. While Hotel Owner focuses mainly on the UK market, lessons can be learnt from market performance overseas and by analysing the causes. This month brought the news that the hotel industry in Paris is suffering from a massive drop in occupancy rates compared with 2015.

Repeated terrorist attacks and the global news attention that they have attracted mean tourists are steering clear of what is normally one of the world’s most visited cities. France’s junior minister for tourism, Matthias Fekl, said occupancy was down to just 32% in the second half of July: it had been hovering around the 77% mark in the same period last year.

Similarly in Nice, last month’s attack which saw a man plough through a crowded seafront area in a lorry, killing and injuring dozens of people, has prompted a collapse in occupancy in that city too. Forget the statistical reality that you are still many hundreds of times more likely to be killed in a road traffic accident on the Champs-Élysées than by a madman wielding a knife or machine gun – the gut feeling of the world’s travellers is that it’s best to steer clear until such a time as the attacks appear to have stopped happening. I feel a deep sense of empathy for French hoteliers – this trade can be difficult enough without the bottom dropping out of the market for reasons beyond their control.

Let’s therefore count ourselves lucky that weak sterling in the wake of Brexit is providing a temporary lift in tourism to the UK, and make hay while the sun shines. There is even the whiff of discussion that a cut to tourism VAT might be part of the policy mix as Britain shapes its departure from the EU.