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Terrorist threat dampens enthusiasm for France

The spate of recent terrorist attacks in France is having a significant fallout on tourism according to a number of studies. France again ranked as world No. 1 tourist destination in 2015 – with a record 84.5 million foreign visitors. But terrorism is taking its toll – and experts say urgent security measures are needed to reassure tourists.

French police patrol famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice after Bastille Day attack.
French police patrol famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice after Bastille Day attack. Reuters/Pascal Rossignol
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Tourism is a big earner for France, representing about 7% of French GDP according to the government. Tourists really fatten up the foreign trade balance by spending some €35.8 billion dollars a year.

But terrorism has put a big damper on that - repeatedly over the past year – and new evidence shows the fallout may be snowballing after the Nice attack.

According to a study by travel intelligence firm ForwardKeys - which analyses about 14 million travel agent bookings daily - Paris has been the worst hit city in Europe in terms of a terrorism driven tourism slump.

Just as signs of recovery were setting in, the Nice attack has set visitor numbers back significantly says British consultant and Forward Keys spokesperson David Tarsh - with an immediate fallout on hotel bookings.

He says Chinese, Japanese and US tourists in particular are now "cancelling in droves".

"What this study shows is that after this atrocity, future bookings to go to Nice and to go to France over coming months … hotel bookings were down 19 percent for Nice and 20 percent for the whole of France."

For Dr. Yeganeh Morakabati, an academic specialised in risk and tourism at the University of Bournemouth, the extent to which a destination is hit by such disasters depends on whether travellers perceive them as a one-time or reocccuring threat.

But even with terrorists going for what she calls "soft targets" such as regional towns, she believes holidaymakers are incredibly resilient – and French tourism will easily weather temporary setbacks.

"Just look at the images we have been seeing this past weekend, of all the British tourists queuing up to get over the Channel to France," she said.

Vanguelis Panayotis, president of Paris based tourism analysts MKG Hospitality, is not so confident.

He says French hotels are being hit hard by the terrorism threat - with turnover down by 270 million euros after the November Paris attacks.

Panayotis says security conscious Asian and US tourists - who represent 30 percent of total tourists - are those cancelling holidays the most.

The latest Nice and Normandy attacks will be far from the last he believes – so urgent measures must be taken to improve hotel security.

"We have to integrate security just like tourism professionals in places like the Middle East have already done in their daily routine – that has been less the case in France and in Europe."

Panayotis said such measures primarily boil down to increased video surveillance - as well as more individual guest checks. But great care is going to have to be taken he said "to not spoil the guest experience".

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