Tourism to Paris reached a new high in 2010, overtaking the previous record set by the French capital in 2007. Hotels recorded 35.9 million overnights, up 5.4% on 2009. This excellent result is mainly attributed to the strength of the domestic market (13.3 million overnights, up by 9.1%), but overseas markets were also strong.
For the first time, overnights from Asian travellers broke through the 4 million mark, rising by 19.9%. Chinese overnights alone jumped by almost 35% to a total of 337,000. Tourists from the Middle East generated 25.1% more overnights last year at 888,000. By contrast, overnights from the Americas fell slightly, by 0.5%, to 3.4 million, while overnights from European travellers declined by 1.4% to 12.4 million. A good sign of the economic recovery is the strong increase in business travel: overnights from this sector increased by 11.2% to 16.2 million in 2010, compared to a more modest 2.2% increase in overnights from leisure travellers.
Cultural attractions are contributing significantly to the growth of tourism in Paris. Last year, art exhibitions organised in the capital broke new records. The Claude Monet retrospective drew an absolute record in total visitors, with 920,000 tickets sold in 125 days. Modern and contemporary art also dragged in the crowds: the Pierre Soulages exhibition at the Centre Pompidou attracted over 500,000 visitors, while the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition at the Paris Museum of Modern Art attracted over 300,000.
Cultural highlights for 2011 include a large retrospective dedicated to impressionist painter Edouard Manet at the Musée d’Orsay from April to July, and the presentation of the Romanoff collections at the Pinacothèque de Paris until the end of May 2011.
