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Tourists Return to Post-Olympic Paris for Holiday Magic

Around 270,000 people visited Notre Dame in the first eight days since its reopened. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
Around 270,000 people visited Notre Dame in the first eight days since its reopened. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
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Tourists Return to Post-Olympic Paris for Holiday Magic

Around 270,000 people visited Notre Dame in the first eight days since its reopened. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
Around 270,000 people visited Notre Dame in the first eight days since its reopened. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

Holidaymakers are returning to Paris for winter holiday magic as the tourism industry rebounds, inspired by the successful Olympic Games and the re-opening of Notre Dame cathedral.
"This year there is much more tourism than last time I came here. Much much more. Many more people," said Noemi Rizzato, a tourist from Milan who braved the cold to visit the Place du Trocadero on the Right Bank of Paris, bundled up in her down jacket, AFP said.
Georges Bardot, a 78-year-old pensioner from eastern France, also pointed to large numbers of foreign tourists amid the holiday hustle and bustle in the City of Light.
"We heard every language except French spoken on the metro," Bardot laughed.
This winter, Parisian hotels are experiencing a surge in demand.
The booking rate for two-week Christmas vacations neared 70 percent in mid-December, nine percentage points higher than a year ago, according to data from MKG Consulting.
Top-of-the-range establishments are doing particularly well, with an increase of nearly 14 points over one year.
According to the UMIH hotel and restaurant union, well-heeled international customers are making a comeback.
Frank Delvau, UMIH president for the Paris region, pointed to an "Olympic effect".
The Games "have made tourists want to come back, or to visit", he said.
Tourism professionals said the world's largest sporting event led to a lackluster summer in Paris.
Wealthy Parisians fled the capital for the summer and many foreign holidaymakers chose to stay away due to transport gridlock and a security crackdown. Hotels and airlines such as Air France saw a drop in bookings, while taxi drivers and restaurant owners said their businesses had been badly affected.
With five billion viewers, the Paris Games were the most followed Games in television and social media history, according to the International Olympic Committee.
- 'Time to go to Paris' -
"We needed this catch-up effect because the situation was very difficult in the third quarter," Delvau said.
"There was a very sharp fall in visitor numbers. The restaurant business was down 40 percent, 50 percent at times," he added.
From November 1 to December 8, international air arrivals to Paris rose by 15.4 percent compared to 2023, to reach 1.3 million, according to the Paris Tourist Office.
On the Ile de la Cite, the island site of Notre Dame cathedral, shopkeepers eagerly await the return of visitors after five years of reconstruction work, as well as the coronavirus lockdowns that saw a drop in tourist numbers.
"The Notre Dame opening this year was the biggest item on our list," said Teju Arora, an engineer from the United States.
"And we did visit Notre Dame, it was amazing. It's a beautiful site and it was great to see, to pray, to visit," said Arora, wearing a red beret.
Around 270,000 people have visited the medieval masterpiece in the first eight days since Notre Dame reopened in early December, rector Olivier Ribadeau Dumas told French daily Le Parisien. "Around 30,000 people a day enter the cathedral."
Tourists "tell themselves it's time to go to Paris", Delvau said.
"They have both Notre Dame and the department stores' windows, which always attract a lot of people."

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Varieties

Antarctica's Tourism Boom Raises Concerns about Contamination and Disease

This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)
This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)
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Antarctica's Tourism Boom Raises Concerns about Contamination and Disease

This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)
This handout photograph released by The British Antarctic Survey on April 8, 2026, shows Emperor Penguins on Antarctica on November 13, 2010. (Photo by PETER BUCKTROUT / BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY / AFP)

Driven in part by fears that the frozen landscapes of Antarctica may be irreversibly melting away because of climate change, tourism to the bottom of the world is soaring. And experts warn that with more visitors comes an increased risk of contamination, illness and other damage to the continent.

While visitor numbers are still small — in part due to the high costs and time it can take — they are growing so fast that scientists and environmentalists are sounding alarms.

A deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus aboard a Dutch ship on a weekslong polar cruise has brought attention to the growing tourism trend, The Associated Press said.

Most expeditions head to the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places in the world. From 2002 to 2020, roughly 149 billion metric tons (164 billion tons) of Antarctic ice melted per year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

A common route is to voyage south from Argentina toward Antarctica before heading north up the coast of Africa — the same route taken by the cruise ship MV Hondius.

“The sites you will see in Antarctica are extremely unique and not replicable anywhere else on the planet — the whales, the seals, the penguins, the icebergs — it’s all really stunning and it makes a huge impression on people,” said Claire Christian, executive director of the environmental group Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.

Explosive growth of trips to the southern continent

In 2024, more than 80,000 tourists touched down on the vast ice-cloaked continent and 36,000 viewed from the safety of ships, according to data collected by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators.

The International Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that tourism to Antarctica has grown tenfold in the past 30 years.

That number could rise further in the next decade as costs fall with more ice-capable hulls hitting the water and technological advances, said Hanne Nielsen, a senior lecturer of Antarctic law at the University of Tasmania. Her colleagues at the university estimate the annual figure could triple or quadruple to over 400,000 visits in that time.

Some tourists come to Antarctica for “last chance tourism,” knowing the melting landscape is rapidly changing, Nielsen said.

Risks of contamination Officials have not indicated any evidence of contamination from the MV Hondius.

However, flocks of migratory birds brought avian flu from South America to Antarctica in recent years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That outbreak prompted the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators and others to harden rules for tourists’ conduct and hygiene to protect visitors from being contaminated. To protect the fragile ecosystem from invasive species large and microscopic, visitors are told to stay away from animals and to avoid touching the ground with anything but their feet.

“There are rules that people are bound by when they’re heading south,” Nielsen said, describing her five voyages as a former guide. Crews and passengers use vacuums, disinfectants and brushes to scrub shoes and equipment clear of bugs, feathers, seeds and microbe-carrying dirt.

“Between the tongues and the laces of the boots you can find a lot of things,” she said.

Cruise ships have been struck by outbreaks of diseases like norovirus, which can spread quickly in a ship's close quarters. In 2020, a COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess turned the cruise ship into an incubator for the then-mysterious virus.

Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings.

The Hondius' island hopping cruise The World Health Organization said Tuesday that MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and visited Antarctica and several isolated islands.

WHO is investigating possible human-to-human transmission on the cruise ship, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness. Officials suspect the first infected person likely contracted the virus before boarding, she said, and officials have been told there are no rats on board.

Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, which in 1959 enshrined the territory as a scientific preserve used only for peaceful purposes. A series of rules that followed “aim to ensure that all visits, regardless of location, do not adversely impact the Antarctic environment or its scientific and aesthetic values,” according to the treaty’s secretariat.

Companies and scientific ventures voluntarily comply with biosecurity guidelines and submit environmental impact assessments for Antarctic operations.

The treaty was written when tourism numbers were much lower, Christian said.

“Activity needs to be regulated appropriately, as you would with any of the world’s sensitive and precious ecological sites,” Christian said from Hiroshima, Japan, where she was preparing for an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. There she'll join calls to strengthen protections for Antarctica's penguins, whales, seabirds, seals and krill — tiny creatures at the base of the food chain.

For now, the lure of the frozen frontier continues to draw visitors.

“You can put a footprint in Antarctica and it’s still there 50 years later,” Christian said.

Varieties

Bear Attack Injures 2 Hikers in Yellowstone National Park in the US

FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)
FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)
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Bear Attack Injures 2 Hikers in Yellowstone National Park in the US

FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)
FILE - This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File)

Two hikers were injured in a bear attack on a popular hiking trail near Yellowstone National Park's Old Faithful geyser, park officials said Tuesday.

The attack was described by officials as a single event Monday afternoon along the Mystic Falls Trail.

A large area of the park near the Midway Geyser Basin was temporarily closed pending an investigation, The Associated Press reported. The area includes at least five trails and several backcountry campsites.

Park officials said one or more bears were involved, but did not specify which species. The park has populations of both grizzly bears and black bears, which can be difficult to tell apart at times. Grizzlies can be more aggressive and they grow much larger — as much as twice as big as black bears. Black bears usually have darker coloring.

Further information — including whether the victims were hiking together and whether they were hospitalized for their injuries — was not being immediately released, said Yellowstone spokesperson Ashton Hooker.

Yellowstone gets more than 4 million visits by tourists annually and attacks by grizzlies or black bears are rare.

In September, a hiker suffered injuries to his chest and arm in an attack on the Turbid Lake Trail northeast of Yellowstone Lake, and a grizzly killed a woman just west of Yellowstone in 2023. The last fatal bear mauling in the park was in 2015 when a 63-year-old Billings, Montana man was killed while hiking alone in the park's Lake Village area.

The fate of bears that attack humans is typically dictated by the circumstances of the encounter.

Following the 2015 fatal attack, officials captured and killed an adult female grizzly because it had eaten part of the victim's body and hid the rest, which is not normal behavior for a bear defending its young.

By comparison, last year's attack on the Turbid Lake Trail happened during a surprise encounter between the victim and the bear. The animal's reaction was considered natural, so it was not relocated or killed.

The heavily traveled Mystic Falls trail where Monday's attack occurred includes a loop that leads to a 70-foot (21-meter) tall waterfall. The trailhead is about two miles (three kilometers) northwest of Old Faithful.

Varieties

Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital

Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital
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Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital

Saudi Space Agency Launches 2nd Edition of 'SARI 2' Initiative in Partnership with Aramco Digital

The Saudi Space Agency (SSA), in partnership with Aramco Digital, announced on Tuesday the launch of the second edition of the “SARI 2” initiative, as an extension of ongoing efforts to empower national talent and foster innovation in the space sector.

The initiative aims to attract undergraduate students from universities across the Kingdom and enable them to develop and launch small satellites, contributing to the advancement of national capabilities and reinforcing the Kingdom’s position in space science and technology.

SARI 2 also seeks to achieve a set of strategic objectives, including supporting scientific research and experiments, providing hands-on opportunities in satellite development and industrial space communication solutions, fostering an innovative environment among universities, and strengthening students’ technical and engineering skills in space-related disciplines and technologies.

The initiative offers participants the opportunity to form student teams to work on advanced projects, including the design of satellites for applications that support various technology sectors.

The SSA, in strategic partnership with Aramco Digital, also provides an integrated educational ecosystem to support participants through expert mentorship, intensive training programs, and workshops that enhance scientific and engineering skills, in addition to providing the technical resources necessary to ensure high-quality project execution.

The SARI 2 initiative serves as a national platform that contributes to preparing a new generation of innovators and researchers in the space sector by offering university students the opportunity to engage in advanced applied environments and execute practical projects, while also strengthening partnerships between the agency, universities, and the private sector, in support of the Kingdom’s space sector development objectives.