"When I'm at home, I miss Paris."

Beat, 69, and Heidi, 66, two Swiss crossed Thursday in front of a souvenir shop at the foot of Notre-Dame, came "every year to Paris for 30 years" before the Covid-19 deprived them of this pleasure .

They rediscover the capital all smiles, even if Heidi finds that there are "many restaurants and cafes closed".

In Paris for the first time, Anne-Marie, 25, and her father Henri, 55, who came from Munich by train, are all the more delighted that they have passed the pandemic without leaving Bavaria.

Insatiable vis-à-vis monuments, Anne-Marie, who did not wish to give her name, does not forget her mask for the visit of the Louvre.

"I work in a hospital, I am very careful".

Coming from Namur with a group of friends, Hélène, crossed on the Saint-Louis island, no longer thinks of the virus at all but of “catching up” on lost time.

"We find ourselves like children with wings on their backs", says the Belgian septuagenarian, who had not been to Paris for two decades and rediscovers it "much more pedestrian, more pleasant, less wild".

In front of the cathedral under construction, at the Pont-Neuf to enter on a river boat or between the four pillars of the Eiffel Tower, it's the same impression: a teeming and cheerful crowd has resumed its good old habits.

Tourists line up in front of the Louvre pyramid on April 29, 2022 - AFP

easter before

"The return of tourists began at the end of February, but it has been especially since the week before Easter", confirms Léo Razzaz, whose number of focaccias sold on a cargo bike, parked on Thursday at Place du Palais-Royal, has tripled since the end of March.

With 20% more tourists compared to 2019, "without Russians or Asians", underlined Jean-François Rial, president of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau (OTCP), Wednesday on BFM Business, the Easter weekend marked a turning point in the reunion, filling the hotels to 82%.

The Eiffel Tower recorded 22,000 visitors per day, very close to its maximum capacity.

On this Easter weekend, North Americans were almost as numerous as before the pandemic (-2%), Europeans too (-8%), underlines the OTCP for whom "these dynamics should continue".

Thus in July, European tourists should be more numerous than in 2019 in the capital, while the return of Americans "to pre-pandemic volumes", staggered, could occur after the summer, estimates the OTCP.

Passers-by in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, April 29, 2022 - AFP

At the Eiffel Tower, in addition to the return of Americans, we note the "renationalization" of "visitorat" with a quarter of French visitors, twice as many as before the crisis, underlines Jean-François Martins, president of the company of operation (Sete).

A "more resilient" tourism?

In the absence of Russian tourists, blocked by the Ukrainian conflict, and Asians, who are emerging much more cautiously from the pandemic, this growth "is all the more interesting as it is based on a return of more local tourism, French and European", abounds Frédéric Hocquard, deputy (Generation.s) at the town hall of Paris in charge of tourism.

Fewer arrivals by plane, more by train, longer stays and "better distributed over the territory": for Anne Hidalgo's deputy, the end of the crisis is an opportunity to get closer to "more sustainable tourism and therefore more resilient, more resilient in times of crisis".

With the establishment of the limited traffic zone (ZTL) in 2024, Mr. Hocquard thus wants to "reduce the place of the tourist bus in Paris", but also "help hotels to connect to central air conditioning" or to install bike parks, or "promote the establishment of hotels in the east of the city" to compensate for the "over-endowed" western districts.

People walk on the avenue des Champs-Elysées, April 29, 2022 - AFP

Illustration of this desire to "avoid the overconcentration of tourists at the same time and in the same place", Mr. Rial now boasts "alternative Paris".

On the website of the tourist office, a review of the best neighborhoods for street-art frescoes, for example, encourages you to cross the ring road to Vitry-sur-Seine or Saint-Denis.

© 2022 AFP