The Olympics Effect: Insights into its impact on Paris' hospitality industry

In less than a month, the city of Paris will ignite the Olympic flame, setting the stage for the world's most extraordinary sporting spectacles and casting the City of Lights into the global spotlight.

It's a unique opportunity to examine the hotel pricing trends and patterns emerging in the run-up to the Games, and when read along with Lighthouse's Paris Olympics Report, it provides a playbook for unlocking event-driven success for travel & hospitality professionals.

So what is the impact of the 2024 Olympic Games on Paris's travel & hospitality industry?

Let's find out.

Paris sees high demand around the Olympics, yet market on-the-books slows

The data is clear: Anticipation for the Olympic Games is very high at this stage. Lighthouse's forward-looking demand indicators - driven by upper-funnel data points including flight and hotel searches - highlight the surge in interest from the 24th of July, a trend that continues through the duration of the Games.

The chart below shows the market occupancy for Paris in July and August, with hotel OTB clearly higher in hotels than in short-term rentals.

Compared to other recent major events in Paris, market OTB has been higher in the buildup to the Olympics, however, we can see in the graph below that the booking pace of previous events picked up drastically in the 90 days preceding the event.

Paris hotel room prices trending downwards

As accommodation providers try to trigger more booking momentum, there has been a noticeable drop in advertised prices.

The graph below shows the difference in advertised prices in the last 30 days between the middle of May and the middle of June.

Despite this shift downwards in price, the prices currently advertised are still well above the average for the year in both hotels and short-term rentals.

Ripple effects of the 2024 Olympics on accommodation prices in other French cities

Pricing data suggests that the business influx from the 2024 Olympics will extend beyond Paris to other French cities. This is evident in the noticeable increase in advertised prices during the Olympics period compared to the same timeframe in 2023.

These trends provide valuable insight into the ripple effects of a major event like the Olympics on the broader accommodation market.

Our latest report, Paris 2024: Analyzing the impact of the Olympic Games on Paris's hospitality market, explores these trends in even more detail, offering you in-depth data, analysis and guidance to help you take more confident, data-backed decisions when events come to your market.

Download the report and get in touch with the Lighthouse team if you have any questions.

^{Data updated 28/06/24}

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