The Palace of Versailles shows a great decline in its summer activity. The absence of foreign tourists who constitute the vast majority of its daily visitors weighs heavily. Its presidency Catherine Pégard affirms that this gives rise to a reflection on the operating model of Versailles.

Only 10,000 visitors per day. Just like the Louvre, which has seen its attendance divided by four, Versailles looks gloomy in the absence of foreign tourists. Attendance at the Palace of Louis XIV is three times lower than usual, announced Wednesday Catherine Pégard, president of the public establishment of the Palace of Versailles. 

A castle 80% visited by foreigners

"We are around 10,000 visitors per day, more during the weekend, less during the week, because our visitors are almost exclusively French. We see foreigners, Germans, Dutch and some Italians coming bit by bit," explains Catherine Pégard. on RTL. "Financially, we do not find it at all", she lamented, adding that the establishment which reopened to the public on June 6 had "lost 45 million" euros since confinement. 

Usually the castle, 80% visited by foreigners, accommodates 30,000 people a day during this period, she said. "It gives us a lot to think about what to be, what to do. , it is our whole model which, if I may say so, collapsed ", she said, recalling that" in all of history, the closure of the castle has only happened once, at time of the outbreak of World War II ". Catherine Pégard however assured "not to make savings" on the staff, both for the 1,000 or so employees of the castle as for the 20,000 other people "who work around" the site.