PRESS RELEASE

08 February 2023

Public thematic report

SUPPORT FOR TOURISM DURING THE HEALTH CRISIS

The Court of Accounts has carried out an assessment of the support measures deployed by the State

and its operators in 2020 and 2021 to help tourism businesses cope with the crisis. These measures

were presented to the sector's stakeholders at the interministerial committees on tourism of 14 May

2020 and 12 October 2020 and constitute what has been called the "tourism support plan". The scope

of beneficiaries of the support measures covers activities as varied as transport, hotels, restaurants,

cultural activities, amusement parks, travel agencies, gambling, airlines and the trade fair sector. The

assessment published today aims to gauge the impact of these measures by answering three

questions: Did the design and deployment of the tourism support measures maintain the viability of

businesses? Have the emergency measures enabled tourism activity to resume and to respond to the

return of tourists to France from the summer of 2020 and 2021? Has the tourism sector begun its

transformation?

A sector greatly affected by the crisis

Before the crisis, France was the number one tourist destination with almost 90 million tourists and 442

million overnight stays in 2019, and the French generated 63% of tourism revenue. Tourism was based

on an exceptional heritage spread over the whole territory. Tourism accounted for 7-7.5% of the

country's GDP from 2010 to 2020, while 320,000 businesses and over two million employees

contributed to it. The health crisis, due to the resulting restrictions on mobility, had a major impact on

the sector, which came to a virtual standstill at certain times. Tourist travel decreased by 73% worldwide

in 2020. In France, the sector's revenue fell by 46% in 2020 and 2021, an unprecedented drop. State

support for the tourism sector was announced in February 2020 with 29 exceptional measures that

make up the "tourism support plan", some of which are specific to tourism and others common to all

businesses. The aim of these measures was threefold: to provide urgent support to employees and

companies to avoid bankruptcies and redundancies, to create the conditions for recovery by stimulating

tourism supply and demand, and to transform the sector to enable the sustainability of the tourism

activity.

A sector protected by €45.5 billion in public aid

The tourism sector benefited from €45.5bn of public aid in 2020 and 2021, provided by the State and its

operators (the assessment does not include measures implemented by local authorities, which are less

extensive). 98% of companies received at least one grant during this period. These grants compensated