Prices that are "soaring". Hoteliers in Paris and its suburbs are skyrocketing prices in the run-up to next summer's Olympic Games, consumer association UFC-Que choisir revealed on Tuesday. "€1,033 is the average price for the night of July 26 to 27, 2024, compared to €317 for the night of July 12 to 13, an increase of 226%," the association notes on its website.
UFC-Que choisir compared the prices, 15 days apart, of 80 hotels near the venue of the opening ceremony, in a study it will publish on Wednesday. Of these hotels, only 50% say they still have rooms available for the opening ceremony, without UFC-Que choisir being able to say whether the other hotels are "already full" or if they are keeping "rooms in stock".
In addition to their rates, hoteliers are also being criticised for tightening their booking conditions. The association explains that "30% of hotels offering rooms required you to book at least two nights", and the magazine specifies that "this can go up to five" nights.
Similar increases on platforms
This study by UFC-Que choisir, published seven months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) in Paris, is not the first to warn about the soaring prices of rooms caused by this event. The average price of a one-night stay in Île-de-France rose from 169 euros in July 2023 to 699 euros during the Olympics, according to a survey drawn up in September by the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau. Similar levels of increase are observed on rental platforms such as Airbnb.
To combat this price increase, the Fraud Repression will double the controls in French hotels and restaurants between now and the Olympics to review 10,000 establishments in France, so that tourists "get their money's worth", announced in early December the Minister Delegate for Tourism, Olivia Grégoire.
Read alsoParis 2024: "Our goal is to control all the hotels in the city by the Olympic Games"
Hotel price inflation is a common phenomenon when organizing major cultural or sporting events. The UFC-Que choisir recalls having already pinned the hotels during the European Football Championship in 2016, or at the time of the 1998 World Cup, both organized in France. "The increases, however, remained more reasonable," the magazine said.