Paris Deputy Mayor: Drop in Tourism Not a Concern for 2024 Bid

(ATR) The deputy mayor of Paris tells Around the Rings that a drop in tourism in the year following the November 2015 attacks will not have an adverse effect on the city’s bid to host the 2024 Games.

Jean-Francois Martins was speaking to ATR in the French capital a year after terrorist atrocities across the city killed approximately 130 people and left more than 350 injured.

Despite going on to host the UEFA European Championships in June and July across France, Martins, in charge of sport and tourism for the city, confirmed that Paris had seen an eight percent drop in average tourism from January to October of this year.

However, after a "positive" presentation of Paris’ bid to host the Games in Doha at the Association of National Olympic Committees General Assembly, the deputy mayor was confident that tourism would recover and that safety and security would not be a heavy issue when the International Olympic Committee chooses the 2024 host city in September 2017.

"From January to October we are minus eight percent of our average tourism rate, which of course is not good but it’s not that bad," Martins told ATR. "Because at the end of the year, we will maybe have hosted 24 million people who will have come to Paris, 92 per cent of our average number – it’s huge.

"I think it proves the strength of the destination, of the city itself as a reliable destination. Of course we had an issue of perception but like New York faced it, London faced it, Madrid faced it and so of course we need to address this issue via communication.

"But we are pretty optimistic that 2017 will be on average like the year before [2016] so we need to stay focused on this."

The example of London is a pertinent one as the British capital suffered terrorist attacks the day after it was announced as the host of the 2012 Games, July 7, 2005.

Security was therefore a prominent feature of the London Olympics and Paralympics, controversially including surface-to-air missiles on the roofs of tower blocks surrounding the Olympic Park.

Martins said that no bidding city was immune to the threat of terrorism, and that the challenges were exactly the same for all candidates vying to be chosen as 2024 host.

He said: "In the competition for 2024, all the cities have the same stakes and are under the same threat. Few countries in the world can say I am not under a terrorist threat. So this is an issue for all the bidding cities.

"But maybe what we went through is possibly an asset because succeeding in delivering the third most important sports event in the world, the European Championships, in June to July this year in maybe the hardest context ever: recent terrorist attacks, a high level of threat, we succeeded in delivering wonderful Euro championships, a safe one.

"We had a fan zone underneath the Eiffel Tower. We had 1.2 million come here to watch football and celebrate the games - all safe experiences. So we know how to do it."

Etienne Thobois, the chief executive of Paris 2024, was in Doha last week and told ATR upon returning to Paris that they had enjoyed a "very positive" week in Qatar.

"The feedback we received was very important for us, and allows us to go ahead and fine-tune our bid accordingly," Thobois said. "For us the feedback was actually more important than the actual execution of the presentation."

He added: "Now, the competition really begins. We have 299 days to go now, we are in the final lap and we are just focused on the finish line and what we have to do to get there."

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo was part of the delegation in Doha, and Francois confirmed that she felt that she had successfully delivered her message effectively to the members of the Olympic community present.

Martins also said that he was confident Paris could deliver a Games "that will change the world".

"I’m sorry maybe it’s a bit over-dramatic," he continued, "but Olympism has changed the world and Paris sometimes has changed the world, so maybe both of them can really change the world.

"They feel about our technical bid that we are ready. I think there was no question on whether Paris was ready to host the Games on a technical aspect."

The race to be chosen as the host of the 2024 Games is seen as one of the biggest in recent years, particularly now with IOC president Thomas Bach’s Agenda 2020 reforms and more scrutiny on bidding budgets and legacy plans.

Paris is competing with Budapest and Los Angeles to be selected as the winning city at the IOC session in Lima, Peru next September.

Written by Christian Radnedgein Paris

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