FRANCE: Less Americans Visiting France Out Of Fear

Terrorist attacks are taking their toll on France's tourism industry, with Paris bearing the brunt of a drop in visits by holidaymakers from outside Europe.

Overnight stays fell about 10 per cent on average for the year to July, with high-spending travellers from the US, Asia and the Persian Gulf states reacting strongly to the attacks, the Secretary of State for Tourism Matthias Fekl said in an interview published in the Journal du Dimanche on Sunday.

Luxury accommodation was the worst hit, with travellers from elsewhere in Europe not cancelling their plans, the minister said.

Tourism is big business for France, which has been hit hardest among European countries by Islamic State-inspired killings since the start of last year.

The murder in July of an elderly priest in Normandy and the Bastille Day massacre in Nice followed assaults last year in Paris – one of the most-visited cities in the world – on concertgoers and the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

International flight bookings to Nice dropped 57 per cent compared with the previous year from the date of the attack to July 23, while planned arrivals this month and in September were down by about a fifth for France as a whole, according to travel-data specialist ForwardKeys.

In response to the attacks, President Francois Hollande has extended a state of emergency, sending soldiers to patrol airports and Paris's major tourist attractions.

The Eiffel Tower was unnecessarily evacuated on Friday after a security drill went awry, Le Parisien newspaper reported Sunday.

Public transport in the city is suffering regular disruptions as suspicious bags are investigated.

Even before the latest attacks, an indicator measuring revenue per hotel room in Paris was down 14 per cent for the first five months of the year, according to a report by the French hotel lobby group Union des Metiers et des Industries de l'Hotellerie.

A poll by the Paris region tourism committee confirmed the trend.

Reservations for August were deemed "bad or very bad" by more than half of the 450 local industry representatives surveyed.

Last month, Air France-KLM Group expressed concern about France's standing as a tourist hotspot after the attacks and Paris-based Accor, Europe's largest hotel operator, said first-half profit fell in part due to the killings.