The tourism sector is about to turn the page on Covid. With 322 million overnight stays registered in France between April and September 2022, hotels, campsites and other residences saw their frequentation increase by 2.4% during the last summer season compared to the same period in 2019, the year before the pandemic, according to an INSEE survey published on Wednesday.
The French clientele, which generated 5.3% of the additional overnight stays during the summer of 2022 (228.8 million), largely explains this upturn, while the number of foreign tourists was still below the level prior to the crisis (-4.2% of overnight stays during the month of April). September period), although a gradual return of this clientele was observed from July. We will come back to it.
Camping, the first type of accommodation
With 136 million registered overnight stays, campsites concentrated 40% of the activity in the tourist accommodation sector in the summer of 2022. In the period, their frequentation shot up 7.5% compared to 2019, while hotels ( -0.8%) and tourist residences, holiday villages and other holiday homes (-1.6%) have not fully recovered their pre-COVID-19 level.
High-end campsites (4 or 5 stars) that register 58% of overnight camping stays are the main winners, with an increase in attendance of 15% compared to 2019 and even 20% in overnight stays for resident clients. Hit hard by the pandemic, high-end hotels also performed well against other establishments with growth of 5.5%.
A vigorous recovery in Guadeloupe, Brittany and Normandy
The recovery of tourist activity during the summer of 2022 can be seen in all regions, with the exception of Mayotte (-2.8%), Ile-de-France (-2.1% of overnight stays compared to 2019) and Grand East (-0.8%). Guadeloupe (+19.5%), Brittany (+7.3%) and Normandy (+6.4%) registered the strongest increases.
The coastal areas attract more tourists (+5% of overnight stays nationwide) than the rural areas (+4.3%), the mountains (+1.3%) or the cities (-1.4%).
Due to the hot weather that marked the summer of 2022, tourists mainly headed for the Normandy coast (+10.3%), Breton (+7.3%) and Hauts-de-France (+8.9%) . The increase in frequentation of the coasts of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (+4.2%) and New Aquitaine (+2.5%) was, on the other hand, more moderate.
Foreign tourists returning from July
While non-resident attendance remained below its pre-Covid level throughout the summer period, the gap narrowed gradually, until the trend reversed in September (+0.7% nights in September compared to September of 2019).
With 70.8 million overnight stays in mainland France between April and September (+1.6% compared to 2019), European customers confirmed their return to France, in particular German (+11.2%), Dutch (+11.2%), +6.9%) and Swiss (+17.9%). %). By contrast, the influx of British customers remained 14.2% lower than in 2019, the last year before Brexit took effect. Spaniards (-9.6%) and Italians (-3.1%) were also less likely to choose France for their holidays.
As for non-European customers, the number of overnight stays for Chinese (-83.4%) and Japanese (-82.6%) tourists was far from returning to the pre-crisis level due to the travel restrictions linked to the pandemic still in force in Asia in spring 2022. As for US customer attendance, it remained 8.2% below its pre-Covid level.
Source: BFM TV
