Each year, visitors spend around 35 million nights in the city’s hotels, with international tourists accounting for more than half of nights spent. All in all, Paris offers more than 2,000 hotels for accommodation, the majority of which are 3-star hotels. The French capital also boasts approximately 90 hotels ranked with 5 stars, one of the most famous probably being the Ritz on Place Vendôme, where Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed shared their last dinner. The performance of the Paris hotel industry was not as good as in other years due to the COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in 2020. That year, the occupancy rate of Parisian hotels was 27 percent for those belonging to the economic range and around 15 percent for top range hotels.
Notre-Dame de Paris is the city’s most visited tourist attraction. Unfortunately, the world-famous medieval cathedral, immortalised by Victor Hugo in his novel of the same name (“The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” in English), sustained serious damage when its roof caught fire in April 2019 and won’t reopen its doors to the public before at least 2025. Other popular landmarks include the peerless Eiffel Tower, the Sacré-Cœur Basilica towering on top of Montmartre hill, as well as the Arc de Triomphe situated at the end of the Champs-Élysées, assertedly one of the world’s most recognizable shopping avenues.
Another source of Parisian pride and tourist interest is the capital’s lively arts and culture scene with its plentiful museums. But first and foremost, it is the archetypal Louvre, a former royal palace turned into a museum exhibiting art ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, which attracts the most tourists. Up to ten million entries a year make it the most visited arts museum, not only nationally, but also in the world.
The French capital is also a major hub for business travel. In 2019, the Greater Paris region counted 17 million overnight stays for business purposes. More than 60 percent of those related to individual business trips, nine percent were linked to congress activity and almost 14 percent to trade fairs.
