French media: Why have Chinese tourists been delayed in returning to France? Article | France | French Media
The French newspaper Le Figaro published an article titled "Why Chinese tourists are not returning to France for a long time?" on its website on July 3rd. The article is compiled as follows:
Everyone has come, except for the Chinese. Foreign tourists are returning to France for tourism, and the number of tourists in some areas is still setting records. Only the Chinese did not respond to France's call. The recent riots should not allow more people to book flights to Paris. It is difficult to see Chinese tourists taking selfies in front of tourist attractions carrying new bags anymore, and the scene of buses pulling them to the shopping mall in Paris has not been reproduced.
Eleanor de Bouisson, President of DFS Group Europe and Middle East and CEO of Samaritan Department Store, said, "Chinese people have returned to Samaritan since March, but leisure tourists have not yet returned. What we see are mainly business tourists who are not sensitive to ticket prices." In the record breaking year of 2019, 2.2 million Chinese tourists brought 3.5 billion euros in revenue to the French economy.
No one believes that Chinese tourists will return to France in 2024 or even 2025. The situation of not coming to France for a long time is somewhat strange, as Chinese people have already started traveling abroad and France is their preferred destination for visiting Europe.
Firstly, the difficulty of obtaining a visa hinders the pace of travel. In China, applying for a visa to France from the French embassy and consulate may take several months. "Faced with a huge number of applications to France -38% of people who want to travel to Europe want to go to France, there is an urgent need to introduce visa services in all major cities in China," said Christian Montaigne, head of the French Tourism Development Agency
You can tell just by looking at France's neighboring countries how serious the problem is. An industry insider explained, "Italy's visa issuance in China has reached 80% of pre pandemic levels, while France's proportion is only 20%. This seems a bit absurd. We are losing market share, mainly because of visas. Chinese people want to come to France, but consulates and embassies cannot meet visa application needs."
Another issue is that there are very few flights between France and China. Tourism industry insiders estimate that the French Civil Aviation Administration is restricting the number of flights. This is a way to protect Air France from the huge appetite of Chinese airlines. However, Olivia Gregor, the ministerial representative in charge of tourism affairs in France, recently denied this statement. She said, "We have been working hard to restore capacity between France and China for several months." The result of the negotiations was that since June 10th, the limit of 30 flights per week has been raised to 50. However, this is still far from before the pandemic: in the summer of 2019, there were 95 flights per week between France and China.