For more than 10,000 Olympic athletes, making it to Paris this summer is a dream come true. Thousands of potential tourists feel otherwise.<\/p>\n
Delta Air Lines says travelers are avoiding the city this summer and booking to destinations elsewhere, amounting to a $100 million hit for the airline during an otherwise bustling summer for European travel, CEO Ed Bastian said.<\/p>\n
Delta\u2019s third-quarter profit and revenue forecast fell short of Wall Street expectations after airlines flooded the market with added flights. The airline reiterated its full-year outlook Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless you\u2019re going to the Olympics, people aren\u2019t going to Paris…very few are,\u201d Bastian told CNBC. \u201cBusiness travel, you know, other type of tourism is potentially going elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delta has the most service of any U.S. airline to Paris and has a joint venture with Air France. Together the two carriers have approximately 70% market share in nonstop service between the U.S. and France, according to consulting firm ICF.<\/p>\n
On July 1, Air France-KLM, the parent of Air France, forecast a revenue hit of as much as 180 million euros $195.5 million) in June through August because of the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cInternational markets show a significant avoidance of Paris,\u201d the company said. \u201cTravel between the city and other destinations is also below the usual June-August average as residents in France seem to be postponing their holidays until after the Olympic Games or considering alternative travel plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bastian said Paris demand after the Olympics, which run July 26 through August 11, will likely be strong. \u201cDuring the period itself there\u2019s a little bit of a hesitation,\u201d he said. Air France-KLM had a similar projection.<\/p>\n
One clear deterrent for mid-summer travel to Paris: Prices for hotel rooms are set to skyrocket.<\/p>\n
Hotel-data firm STR said revenue per available room for upscale hotels in Paris will soar as much as 45% in July and August from last year. Meanwhile, it forecast a 3% to 5% increase in the metric in London and 2% to 4% increase in Rome for the same months over 2023.<\/p>\n
Many travelers were already shifting their European vacations beyond the traditional summer travel season, Delta\u2019s president, Glen Hauenstein, said on an earnings call on Thursday. That gives airlines a chance to earn more revenue outside of traditional peak seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see the season extending as a whole group of people, whether or not it\u2019s retirees, whether or not it\u2019s people with double incomes and without children, who don\u2019t have the school concerns,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a better time to go to Europe in September and October than it is potentially in July and August when the weather is so hot and everything is so packed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said Delta is seeing a boom in travel to Japan, thanks in large part to a favorable exchange rate for U.S. tourists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the yen was 83 [per U.S. dollar], it was very difficult to be able to afford to go see Japan and all the great things that Japan has to offer. With the yen at 160, it\u2019s a very different world for U.S. travelers and they seem to be taking great advantage of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For more than 10,000 Olympic athletes, making it to Paris this summer is a dream…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}