Paris, France | AFP | Thursday 08/28/2025 – Between tight budget and capricious weather, the tourist season was contrasted this summer in France, with shorter stays and fewer leisure spending, but the major tourist centers like Paris and the Côte d’Azur are pulling out of the game.
Grand Paris attracted 6.4 million international tourists in July-August, according to data from the Tourist Office published Thursday, a level comparable to that of 2023.
“It is rather positive, without being the panacea,” comments with AFP Corinne Menegaux, director general of the Paris tourist office, recalling that summer is traditionally not the best season for the capital.
In Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, hotels see their occupancy rates progress this summer, and the attendance of seasonal rentals has progressed ( +2%) like that of the outdoor hotel (campsite … +3%), according to the Regional Tourist Committee Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
The president of this organization, François de Canson, however deplores a “lesser attendance of major European clienteles (Germany, Netherlands and Italy)” and “an economic, geopolitical but also climatic context which weighs on the results of attendance and especially on consumption”.
He also notes “a stronger demand on the flexibility of dates and stays of stays, shorter stays’ requests” as well as “arbitrations on catering and activities”.
“At 7.5 euros for the ice, it’s a bit of bamboo. But they are good and for quality, I want to pay,” Christian Dauphin told AFP, sitting on a bench against Palavas-les-Flots beach, Hérault popular seaside resort, a stone’s throw from Montpellier.
“We made a compromise: we took a hotel five or six kilometers from here, next to the airport. I don’t think we could pay for a week here,” added this 47 -year -old worker, who came from Auvergne with his teenage son.
“The season was quite bizarre, in a sawfall”, notes Esteban Gonzalez, 21, “room manager” of the sunbathing, a private beach in Palavas-les-Flots where “it started very slowly in July” before a renewed activity in August.
– Arbitration –
Budget arbitrations that restaurateurs have paid the price: according to estimates by the professional federation UMIH, attendance fell this summer from “25 to 30%”.
According to its president, chef Thierry Marx, 25 restaurants close every day, with increasingly heavy charges and therefore passed on to selling prices, and “prices on the slightly high map”, making foreigners turn away from France, “he said on TF1 last week.
For Vanguélis Panayotis, from the firm specializing in MKG Consulting tourism, interviewed on BFMTV, “holidaymakers have arbitrated and may have gone to cheaper and less classic destinations. Some destinations that did not really benefit from summer before, benefit more today like the rural and mountain environment”.
An analysis that joins the summer assessment of the Pierre & Vacances group (tourist residences), with occupancy rates up in the mountains and the countryside, and an average duration of stays slightly.
These “alternative” destinations are also acclaimed due to the weather and in particular episodes of heat waves, with vacationers in search of freshness.
On Airbnb, Paris remains the most reserved destination in France, but the director general France, Clément Eulry, notes “a strong interest in stays in the great outdoors” from the Germans, international travelers who have most reserved on the platform, and acclaimed mountain, Mediterranean coast and Brittany.
“With the Indian summer and the maintenance of clement temperatures, the travel season does not stop in August: September is increasingly essential as a privileged moment to leave, taking advantage of attractive rates and a lighter crowds”, abounds Vanessa Heydorff, general manager of the Booking.com site in France.
