Tourism: Part of the New or Old Economy?
Is tourism part of the new or old economy? While waiting for experts to enlighten us—the dilemma is truly a tough nut to crack, isn’t it?—this economic sector is one of the pillars of France’s growth, which claims the top spot as the world’s leading destination.
If the results are already very good—after a decline in 2016 and 2017 following the shock from the Paris and Nice attacks—forecasts aim for excellence.
The government’s goal is to reach the threshold of 100 million international tourists and associated revenues of 50 billion euros by 2020.
Tourism, a key sector of the French economy, generates nearly 8% of our GDP and represents 2 million direct and indirect jobs. The targets set for 2020 are expected to create an additional 300,000 jobs across the entire country, both in mainland France and overseas territories.
This would mean an impact on GDP of nearly 10% by 2028.
It is true that the trend is global: from 1.3 billion tourists in 2018, projections aim to reach 1.8 billion by 2030. One example: Chinese tourists have exceeded 100 million!
In France, the economic recovery linked to tourism in recent months continues to assert itself and grow compared to 2017: for the current year, the forecast is to surpass the record number of 89 million.
If we look at the situation in the Nice metropolitan area, the second quarter of 2018 shows significant progress compared to the second quarter of 2017 with a +8.12% increase in revenue for the hotel and restaurant sector. The months of May and June were excellent.
Observing the trend over 12 months, the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis is progressing much faster (+9.85%) than the rest of the department (+3.7%).
According to statistics, the weight of this sector is close to 20% of the territory’s GDP.
While waiting for the rise of the new economy, we can only strive to maintain the good health of the old one, if such it can be called given the impact of digital technology on its organization.
