Chinese, US visitors expected to set records after terror doldrums

PARIS - High-kicking dancers are enthralling full houses again at the Moulin Rouge and art lovers are swarming the Louvre as Paris enjoys a tourism revival after plummeting numbers brought on by terror attacks.

Tourists are increasingly refusing to give in to fear of being caught up in a jihadist attack such as the November 2015 bloodbath in the French capital and flocking in droves once more.

In a rebound that began at the end of last year, Paris saw a record 2.6 million foreign arrivals in the first four months of this year - a 19 percent increase over the same period in 2016.

Top Moulin Rouge official Jean-Victor Clerico shakes his head as he looks back at the "black year" of 2016, when the cavernous hall was only three-quarters full on an average night.

The world's most famous cabaret enjoyed a brief uptick but a series of events - street protests against labor reforms, foul weather and a truck rampage in the southern city of Nice that claimed 86 lives - combined "to completely wipe out the recovery," he said.

Since then terror attacks have become more frequent and widespread, hitting not just France but also Belgium, Britain and Germany, sparking "a kind of fatalism", said Josette Sicsic, head of Touriscopie, a firm that tracks tourist behavior.

Around 14.5 million people visited Paris in 2016, a drop of 5 percent from the previous year.

Last year's tourist numbers were also affected by social unrest as hundreds of thousands took to the streets around France in sometimes violent protests against labor reforms.

In addition, a series of robberies targeting Asians, especially Chinese, since 2013 have been a deterrent.

But it is Chinese tourists, as well as those from the US, who are expected to set records this year.

Nicolas Lefebvre, director of the Paris Tourism Office, like Sicsic and Clerico, said he thought people were becoming inured to terrorism.

"The constant repetition of these events - there have been several in a few months, thankfully less deadly - has made them sort of part of the landscape, and it no longer stops people from imagining, thinking about, and organizing a trip to Europe, and to Paris in particular," he said.

Sicsic said potential tourists have concluded that they "can be hit by a terrorist act in their country of origin or when traveling (so) you can't keep boycotting Paris, London and so on".

Enjoying a salad on the terrace of a Champs-Elysees restaurant, Alexa Derby said she and her family have "felt pretty safe the whole time we've been here."

Derby, 25, who works as a snorkel boat deckhand in Hawaii, added: "I mean it (terrorism) is definitely on your mind, but what are you going to do? Hide your whole life and not travel?"

South African housewife Susan Sobel, 64, visiting Paris for the second time since 2007, said: "You have to seize the moment and hopefully you'll be safe."

However, Britons are contributing less to the recovery because of a factor that has nothing to do with terrorism: their vote to leave the European Union has dragged down the pound, making travel to the Continent more expensive.

Agence France-presse