By Samuel Akpan in Paris
Sport fans from around the world arrived in Paris for the Olympics with a rude shock at the inflated price of transportation and hotel room tariffs, as the hospitality industry is cashing in on visitors with an over 300 percent increase in tariffs.
A Persecondnews correspondent in Paris, a city known for its opulence, reports that it is playing host this year to the first post-Covid games without any crowd restrictions, the first time in six years.
Both the Tokyo summer games in 2021 and the Beijing winter games in 2022 either barred or limited spectators or visitors.
It is estimated that there will be over 15 million visitors, with over 2 million of the total coming from abroad, hence the jump in price.
A Nigerian, Mrs. Uche Nwodu, who spoke to our correspondent, said: “It costs over €150 to get a room in a hotel on the outskirts of Paris. I don’t want to talk about the cost of transportation. I paid more than €45 for the Paris Fan Zone at my hotel. This is ridiculous, and I am going to spend it while returning home.
“I budget over €100 daily if I’m to step out to the competition venue; for instance, I couldn’t make it to Nantes for the Super Falcons game against Japan because it cost almost €200 to and from the match venue.”
Despite the high cost of hospitality in the city, fans jostle along the Champs-Élysées, bypassing cafes and expensive shops, moving eastward in numbers so great that they spill off the sidewalks and into the street.
A French citizen named Maxim said: “The B & B Hotels at rue de la Belle Etoile usually go for €20, but now, because of the games, it’s over €150. Online cabbies have also increased their fares by more than 100 percent.
“After the games, the price will go back to normal; during the summer, prices of things shoot up due to the influx of visitors, but in the winter, it crashes down.”
“The airfare and hotel tariff rates are going up by hours and days,” said Scott, whose firm provides bookings for air tickets and hotel accommodations for tourists.
Many Nigerian football fans, who had planned to watch the Super Falcons play at the Olympics before they crashed out on Wednesday, found themselves in a tight spot with the doubling and tripling of travel and staying costs.
“Getting a visa was a major problem; coming here, I was hoping I would go around competition venues easily, but we are taken aback by the surging costs of travel and staying in Paris,” Nigerian fan Gbenga Solomon told Persecondnews.
The latest budget put the total cost of the Paris Olympics at €8.9 billion, or 0.3% of French GDP in 2024, primarily powered by large private funding and state guarantees, split between capital investment in the three new venues, temporary venues, and renovation of existing facilities (€4.5 billion) and operating expenses related to the Games (€4.4 billion).
The Olympics investment budget included three main construction projects: an Olympics Village (estimated at about €1.5 billion), the Aquatics Centre (€175 million), and a new arena that will host badminton and gymnastics (€138 million).
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