In the next few weeks, millions of people will descend on the French capital to attend one of the world’s biggest sporting events: the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. But most will turn their backs on Paris’s cultural attractions, many of which are expecting the worst revenue drop in years. While some venues have opted to close during the period, others have come up with creative solutions to try to make up the shortfall.
Paris's cultural sector is bracing for a tough summer. Judging by the 2012 Olympics in London, when the city’s cultural visitor numbers dropped by a staggering 30 percent, Paris cinemas, museums and theatres are expecting much of the same.
The London statistics are a scary read: During the two-week Games, the British museum lost one out of every four visitors, the National Gallery two out of every five, and the London Zoo saw a 40 percent plunge in the number of recorded entries.
In a bid to anticipate what otherwise could turn out to be an even costlier experience, some cultural venues have decided to shut – either fully or partly – during the July 26-August 11 Games, and several recurring cultural events have been cancelled, including the Summer Vibration and Lollapalooza music festivals. In an interview with France Bleu earlier this year, the organiser of Lollapalooza said the cancellation was worth some €180 million.
Closing is ‘the least worst option’
“We’re the big losers of the Olympic Games,” said Pierre-Édouard Vasseur, the head of the independent film theatre network Cinémas Dulac.
Having run the numbers ahead of the Games, in which the network calculated a 20-25 percent drop in move-goers, Dulac has decided to close its five central cinemas in the 5th, 6th, 11th, 13th and 16th arrondissements (districts).
“We won’t be able to absorb the drop in visitors,” he explained, adding that the fact that the city’s public transport is expected to be both complicated and saturated during the period contributed to his decision.
“Some of our staff live far away, so their journeys would take longer, and we didn’t want to inflict that on them,” he said. “It might also have translated into delays, which would mean delayed screenings, and ultimately, unhappy movie-goers.”
Vasseur said that by closing his cinemas altogether, he had opted for "the least worst solution" considering there is no government help to plug the losses he otherwise would have incurred.
While most other movie theatres will remain open during the Olympics, many of them have reduced the number of screenings. The situation is much the same at many Parisian theatres. Many of the smaller, private ones see no option but to close their doors.
The city’s museums are also expecting a severe downturn and have taken measures to adjust to what they expect to be a significantly smaller clientele than usual. The site hosting the Museum of French Monuments and the French architecture centre, for example, is located right in central Paris, within the security parameters of the Games, and for about a week (July 18 and July 23) it will only be accessible to those who have a special pass to enter the area. Then, in the days surrounding the opening of the games (July 24 and July 27) it will be closed. The Museum of Mankind, which is located just nearby, has decided to close throughout the Games.
In an article published in Le Monde in September, 2023, the heads of a number of Parisian cultural venues expressed their concerns about how the Games would impact them. Quentin Bajac, director of the Jeu de Paume arts centre which will be closed also throughout the Paralympics and until the end of September, predicted a loss of between €600,000 and €700,000. And Aurélie Clemente-Ruiz, the head of the Museum of Mankind, said her establishment would see 10,000 visitors less than usual.
What about the tour guides?
Parisian tour guides are also worried, but some have come up with creative solutions to keep on working.
According to the national tour guide federation (FNGIC), which has carried out a survey among its members on the matter, said that two-thirds of them expect to continue working as normal during the Games, with only one-third seeing the event as an obstacle to their work. Ten percent of the respondents said they would stop working during the period.
Maëva Marie-Sainte, who has been a tour guide for the past decade, said it was out of the question that she would let the Olympics get in the way of her working.
“I welcome the opportunity,” she said, noting that she considers it more of a fun challenge than anything else. “But I understand that some guides might be worried or tired, because it takes a lot of energy to readjust, as we’ve had to do throughout all the other recent crises,” she said, referring to both the global pandemic and France’s terror threats.
To make ends meet during the games, she will return to a concept she created already back in 2017 and which she calls “1 arrondissement per day”. It consists of touring Paris arrondissement by arrondissement for a total of 20 days.
The concept, which she plans to mix-up with tours of more traditional tourist spots such as the Château de Versailles and the Louvre Museum, will help her keep working given that large parts of central Paris will be disrupted during the Games and will be difficult to get to. Marie-Sainte also expects most of her clients during this period to be locals.
"When we found out that we were going to have more French customers, I was motivated to focus on these types of visits, which will be more protected from the Olympics," she said. "It's an opportunity to share the secrets [of these places] that nobody else knows."
But for the tour guides who don't live in Paris it's much harder to keep on working in the French capital.
Fifty-three-year-old Céline Ridard, who has been a tour guide in Paris since 2011 but who lives out in the suburbs, has remedied this by coming up with new tours that are focused on her Seine-et-Marne region instead.
"In light of what's coming up, it's better to stay away," she said, noting she wants to avoid the big crowds – in tourist spots and public transport alike – as well as the potential risks of terror attacks these can bring.
"I'm apprehensive. So I preferred to give my availability to tourist offices in Seine-et-Marne rather than rush off to Paris and ruin my health," she said.
Her Olympic itinerary will include guided cruises and walks along the Marne river, and tours of the Esplanade des Religions in Bussy-Saint-Georges, a site that hosts five places of worship from five different religions.
Ridard, who said she has always been against the idea of hosting tours limited to just Versailles and the Louvre, said she is thrilled to be able to showcase “the riches of the distant suburbs”.
The downside, she said, is that her bookings for the summer are fewer than usual.
“It’s very quiet this year – too bad for my turnover,” she said. But, she quipped, “I’ll pay less tax next year.”
This article has been translated from the original in French.
