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≡ ANALYSIS & OBSERVATIONS ≡
“The holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris had generally positive effects on the French economy during the summer of 2024, contrary to the fears that had been expressed in advance. In an estimate, GDP growth in the third quarter of the year was amplified by around a quarter of a point, thanks in particular to ticket sales and television rights.”
That’s from a new report from the Banque de France, confirming a positive economic impact for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The report further noted (computer translation from the original French):
“During the economic surveys conducted by the Banque de France prior to the event, companies expressed their fears about a negative effect of the Olympic Games on their activity. However, this appears to have been overestimated.
“The construction sector appears to be the only one to have temporarily slowed down its activity. These same surveys conclude that there was a net positive effect on the national economy. Three regions concentrated the increase in activity: Île-de-France, Centre-Val de Loire and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.”
The report observed that while the concentrated activity in the third quarter generated an increase of 0.25% in the French Gross Domestic Product for that period, “[t]he impact on quarterly growth is transitory and followed by a backlash in the following quarter.”
The revenue drivers were ticketing, tourism and event attendance, plus the impact of television rights and the broadcast of the Games. And the study showed that despite pre-Games concerns over business impacts, the surveys showed less impact than was expected, and where felt, was concentrated to just a few sectors.
As for the bank’s performance in supporting cash availability, no problems:
“In terms of payments, higher than usual cash withdrawals were observed in Paris, due to the influx of foreign tourists. However, these movements remained limited and did not pose any difficulty to the players concerned in the cash sector. Generally speaking, the Banque de France was able to define a specific organization with all the players, in order to prevent any crisis situation, in a context of high traffic.”
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One of the interesting aspects of the report was an estimate of the number of non-resident visitors to the Paris Games.
A preliminary study by the Paris Je t’Aime tourism department, issued in August and based on accommodations usage, estimated that 3.1 million overnight visitors came through Paris during the Olympic period in 2024, compared with 2.6 million in 2023. So the Olympic “load” was considered to be about 500,000 visitors across the 17 days of the Games.
The Banque de France study offered a different figure, based on mobile phone usage (out-of-area SIM cards), estimating that the additional daily users present in Paris during the Games period from outside the local region, was 360,000, considerably lower. This was reported as a 7% increase from 2023, localized to the Ile-de-France region, where the Games mainly took place.
This is a worthwhile measurement, in contrast to the pre-Games hype of millions of out-of-area visitors coming for the Games. The Banque de France study observed that about 60% of the out-of-area visitors were from Europe.
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