Soaring prices, three nights minimum... The excesses of Parisian hoteliers highlighted as the 2024 Olympics approach

The Paris Olympic Games are just around the corner and it's not just the athletes who are preparing to break records. Hoteliers would also be on the “starting blocks” to stock up during the competition, according to UFC-Que Choisir. In a study to be published this Wednesday, December 27, which Le Figaro was able to consult, the consumer association highlights the exorbitant rates charged by several Parisian hotels during the event. Some establishments do not hesitate to triple or even quintuple their prices.

To conduct its investigation, UFC Que Choisir randomly selected 80 Parisian hotels from 2 to 4 stars, all within a radius of one kilometer around the Seine where the opening ceremony will take place on Friday July 26, 2024. The association has raised the price of classic double rooms for the night of July 26 to 27, comparing them to the rates charged two weeks before the event, i.e. from July 12 to 13. The results are striking: of the 20% of hotels bookable on both dates, the nightly rate is on average multiplied by three during the opening ceremony. In these hotels, the room goes from a few hundred euros on average (317 euros) to more than 1000 euros for the night of July 26 alone.

Some establishments are not content with tripling their rates at the time of the Olympics: in a three-star hotel designated by the association, the price of the night will increase from 304 euros on July 12 to 2,083 euros on July 26, i.e. “an increase by 585%”, as the study highlights. A tidy sum, which will however not give the customer the possibility of modifying or canceling their reservation, since it is “non-modifiable and non-refundable”. He will just have the luxury of being able to benefit from breakfast, this being included in the package offered.

Also read Paris 2024: towards an unlimited surge in rental and hotel prices during the Olympics?

Some hotels appear to be less greedy, content to double their prices during the famous opening ceremony. The fact remains that this “price” temperance did not really fool the UFC-Que Choisir investigators... Because these same hotels are taking advantage of the Olympic Games to impose reservation conditions that are much more restrictive than usual. The association noted that 30% of hotels still open for reservation require the customer to reserve at least 2 nights, the obligation could go up to 5. “On average, the traveler will have to stay no less than 3 nights (3 ,4) in the hotel structure,” underlines the study. So, if these establishments are on average less expensive than the previous ones (861 euros per night on average), the bill will turn out to be just as steep, since you have to count on at least 3 nights on site.

In the end, the average stay comes to 2947 euros, which is not cheap, especially since some hotels do not joke with their reservation conditions. To hope to spend the night in a 5-star hotel in the 8th arrondissement identified by the association, the customer must be prepared to stay there four nights, for the staggering sum of... 8,380 euros. This charming room, with a small balcony, will cost 2,095 euros per night on July 26. Two weeks earlier, these occupants would have only had to spend 884 euros for the same room...

The fact remains that if the opportunism of hoteliers is questionable, even shocking, it is difficult to remedy it. Controlling the prices charged by hotels and restaurants at the time of the Games is not on the agenda, as Minister for Tourism Olivia Grégoire recently reminded us. “Neither in London, Rio, or even Beijing, has there been any supervision or regulation of prices within the framework of the Olympic Games. We are not in an administered economy,” she argued on December 6 in the morning show on Sud Radio.

Failing to calm the appetite of hoteliers and restaurateurs, the executive intends to strengthen controls. 10,000 establishments will be controlled by Fraud Repression by 2024, including 600 in the Paris region. In a press release, the DGCCRF specified that these “controls” will relate to “the loyalty of accommodation and catering services”. “It’s great that we are hosting the Games, but it is essential that tourists, French or international, get value for their money, if this is not the case we will be heavily sanctioned,” commented Olivia Grégoire. . Will the minister's wish be granted? Eight months before the Games, nothing is less certain...