Hoteliers in Paris and its surrounding area are “spiking their prices” in the run-up to the Olympic Games organized next summer, the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir revealed on Tuesday. “1,033 euros is the average price charged for the night of July 26 to 27, 2024, compared to 317 euros for that of July 12 to 13, an increase of 226%,” notes the association on its site. UFC-Que Choisir compared the prices, two weeks apart, of 80 hotel establishments close to the venue of the opening ceremony, in a study that it will publish this Wednesday.
Among 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 “some rooms in stock”. Beyond their prices, hoteliers are also being criticized for having tightened their reservation conditions. The association explains in particular that “30% of hotels offering rooms required that we reserve at least 2 nights”, and the magazine specifies that “this can go up to five” nights.
More reasonable precedents
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 of the surge in room prices that causes this event. The average price of a one-night stay in Ile-de-France increased from 169 euros in July 2023 to 699 euros during the Olympics, according to a report established in September by the Paris Tourist and Convention Office. Similar levels of increase are observed on rental platforms such as Airbnb.
To fight against this price increase, the Fraud Repression will double controls in French hotels and restaurants between now and the Olympics to review 10,000 establishments in France, so that tourists “get value for their money”, announced at the beginning of December the Minister for Tourism, Olivia Grégoire. Hotel price inflation is a common phenomenon when organizing major cultural or sporting events. The UFC-Que Choisir recalls having already pinned down the hotels during the European football championship in 2016, or even during the 1998 football World Cup, both organized in France. “The increases, however, remained more reasonable,” underlines the magazine.