- All tourists from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have canceled their reservations for the Nice Carnival
- Tourism on the Côte d'Azur remains little affected by the coronavirus, however, "this clientele being marginal at this time of the year", according to the city of Nice.
They were 326 in 2019. They will finally be… absent from the Nice carnival this year. Seventy-one tourists from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong have canceled their reservations, while the coronavirus has already killed nearly 1,900 and the number of contaminations in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macao) has climbed to 72,300, at the latest toll this Tuesday.
A delegation of 120 tourism professionals, who were to be received by the tourist office, was also forced to give up their visit to the Côte d'Azur, as was a contingent of 150 Chinese journalists and influencers.
Consequences to be put into perspective
No way to be alarmed, however, according to Rudy Salles, deputy mayor of Nice, delegate for tourism and international relations: "The epidemic has little impact on the attendance of carnival. Even today, we note an increase in individual seat reservations of around 20% compared to last year. "
The decline in the Nice carnival clientele from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan was notably offset by an increase in French and European attendance, especially in Russia. 2,230 visitors from Japan and 270 from Korea reinforce this dynamic.
"For us, the coronavirus has no impact," adds, for its part, the organization of the Lemon Festival in Menton. On the contrary, on D-1, 30% of additional tickets were sold compared to 2019, due to dematerialization and a communication effort, ”adds Marianne Cipan, press officer for the Community of the French Riviera.
"No cascading cancellation" either in the hotels of the French Riviera, assures Denis Cippolini, president of the Federation of hotel, catering and tourism Nice Côte d'Azur. “We had 80 cancellations on nearly 15,000 rooms available every day in Nice. »Or 0.05%.
A spring and not a winter clientele
To explain the low impact of the viral pneumonia epidemic on the local economy, Rudy Salles refers to the tourist habits of the Chinese population. “This clientele is not a winter clientele. With the Chinese New Year, she tends to move inside her country. Tourists from China will not arrive until spring, ”analyzes the elected official.
However, the number of their stays on the Côte d'Azur tripled between 2007 and 2015. “The objective is to reach 250,000 stays in 2025 [compared to 115,000 in 2018], so that China enters the top 10 of the Côte d'Azur's foreign markets, ”explained the Côte d'Azur Regional Tourism Committee last summer when a direct Nice-Beijing line was opened. The reopening of this seasonal line is scheduled for next June.
Until then, tourism stakeholders on the Côte d'Azur remain attentive to publications from the World Health Organization (WHO). The latter wanted to be reassuring Monday: outside the Chinese province of Hubei, epicenter of the epidemic, the Covid-19 disease "affects a very small proportion of the population" and its mortality rate is not for hour only about 2%.
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- coronavirus
- Nice
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