French tourism is enjoying a boom thanks to the Rugby World Cup, with hundreds of thousands of rugby fans filling top-end hotels and proving wealthier and better behaved than the average soccer supporter.
France Tourism Minister Luc Chatel said an estimated 350 000 foreign fans and their families would be drawn to France during the six-week tournament, which ends on October 20.
Hoteliers reported that in September alone turnover was up by as much as $150-million thanks to the rugby, with most well-heeled supporters heading to three- and four-star hotels.
”They spend more than your average tourist and more than your average sports fan, like football supporters,” Chatel said.
”The Australians and New Zealanders haven’t hesitated to spend $10 000 to $15 000 for a stay in France during the World Cup,” he told a news conference.
On average, a French fan was spending about €150 on transport, food and merchandising on match day.
Visiting Europeans were spending an average €2 000 for their stay, over and above their match tickets, while southern hemisphere tourists were spending on average €5 500, the ministry said.
When France staged the soccer World Cup in 1998, an estimated half-a-million fans flooded the country for the 64-game, 32-team tournament, but many came just for the match day and did not bring spouses or children with them.
The rugby event comprises just 20 teams playing 48 games, six of which were not even staged in France, but most of the stadiums have been full and the visiting fans have stayed on average much longer than their soccer counterparts in 1998.
Scared away
”What’s more, many other tourists stayed away in 1998, worried about trouble connected to the football,” said Christian Mantel, head of France’s tourism development agency Odit.
”No one is scared by the rugby fans, so they are just coming in on top of the normal tourism traffic,” he added.
French hotels had hiked prices by 16% during the event, against a 40% hike by German hotels during the 2006 Soccer World Cup, the tourism minister said.
Occupation rates in the smarter hotels had been about 100% in host cities during match week.
The shock exit of New Zealand and Australia at the quarterfinal stage should not dampen the tourism windfall, because many of their fans had confidently assumed their teams would go all the way to the final and booked long trips accordingly.
Government ministers are predicting that France’s unexpected triumph over the All Blacks would give a fillip to the domestic economy, which had started to flag in recent months.
”It’s good for morale and that’s good for the economy. It’s all about psychology,” Herve Novelli, the secretary of state in charge of foreign trade, told French television this week.
When the final whistle blows on October 20, the French Tourism Ministry plans to launch an advertising campaign in the southern hemisphere, hoping to cash in on goodwill caused by the tournament.
”This event will prove an exceptional vector for future tourism in our country,” he said.
In all, the World Cup was expected to generate revenues of about €8-billion, including television advertising and sponsorship deals, with half that money arriving in the months and years after the tournament, Chatel said. — Reuters