In the run-up to the Olympic Games in the summer, the number of shops in the luxury segment and in the sports and cosmetics sectors increased significantly in Paris. A number of brand manufacturers have opened or expanded stores on the Champs-Élysées, reported the business newspaper ‘Les Échos’, citing a study by the real estate company Knight Frank. Other tourist areas, such as the opera, also benefited from the desire to be present in the French capital with so-called flagship stores.
“The Olympics were a booster, but we know that players are not venturing into this market because of the three-week Olympics,” Knight Frank commercial director Antoine Salmon told the newspaper. Rather, the games accelerated a development plan with long-term prospects. The brand manufacturers hoped to benefit from the return of tourists to the Parisian boulevard, which should be spruced up before the games and fundamentally beautified afterwards.
According to a Mytraffic study last summer, the frequency on the Champs-Élysées increased by 15 percent from June 2022 to May 2023 to over a million visitors per month. The Champs-Élysées benefited from the city’s investment of 30 million euros in greenery, sidewalks and streets, said the president of the Champs-Élysées Committee, Marc-Antoine Jamet. The Olympic Games would have encouraged brand manufacturers who wanted to bear the high costs to set up shop on the boulevard. The Summer Games are scheduled for July 26th to August 11th, 2024. (dpa)