Big-spending Chinese to outnumber Americans in Paris
Saturday, November 23, 2002
scmp.com
SANDY LI
The number of Chinese visitors to Paris is expected to quadruple to two million over the next decade, overtaking Americans as the French capital's No 1 tourist group by nationality.
Annual visitors from the mainland have grown more than threefold in four years to total 455,000 last year, according to Paris Convention and Visitor Bureau general manager Paul Roll.
"China is the fastest-growing market with an annual growth of 50 per cent," said Mr Roll, a member of a Paris Tourism Board delegation which has just completed an annual visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
While Chinese ranked seventh by tourism arrivals to Paris last year, they are already the city's biggest-spending visitors, averaging 240 euros (HK$1,875) per person per day - nearly two and a half times the 100 euro average spent by European tourists, according to Mr Roll.
The Paris Tourism Board expects visitors to Paris to surge further once France is recognised by the mainland government as an official tourist destination. Germany is the only European Union country for which Beijing issues tourists visas "so Chinese visitors have to use Germany as a gateway city to Europe", Mr Roll said.
Next year's opening of Baiyun International airport in Guangzhou will increase the number of direct flights to Paris. There are 28 direct flights weekly between Shanghai, Beijing and Paris.
Mainland visitors are the second-largest customer group of the renowned 113-year-old Moulin Rouge cabaret.
Moulin Rouge president Pierre-Antonine Gailly, also a Paris Tourism Board delegate, said they accounted for seven per cent of the cabaret's total audience, which was expected to reach 600,000 this year, up 15 per cent from last year. |
