With the Paris Olympics around the corner, I thought it would be interesting to see how the pricing strategy compares to that of the London Olympics case study we did in class. It seems Paris will focus its ticket sales on a website called tickets.paris2024.org. After messing around with the tabs and using Google to help translate, I have come to the conclusion that unlike the London Olympics, the Paris Olympics couldn’t care less about promoting the event for the every man!
Pricing is insane for this event! Thinking of going to the opening ceremony? Hope you have €2,700 lying around. That must be for a seat front and center right? Nope! That will put you in the last remaining rows. It doesn’t get much better for events either. Similar to the London games, the events are priced based on popularity of the event. Only problem is that the unpopular events are more expensive than the best events London had to offer. The most expensive event, women’s artistic gymnastics finals currently cost €1,799. On the low end, for qualification rounds of handball you’ll be shelling out €250. But with that said, at this time over seven million tickets have been purchased since sales began last year showing maybe these prices are not as crazy as they might seem.
The Games aren’t the only ones squeezing every last euro out of this opportunity. Hotels have jumped aboard and set their prices to the moon. Compared to last summer, the average hotel room has almost quadrupled in price! Currently the average room is about €1,000 compared to €300 last year. Hearing this you might think that surely the government would step in and stop this gouging in the hopes to avoid Paris looking bad. You’d be wrong! The government is all for it and has said they will not be regulating prices. Olivia Grégoire, the minister in charge of tourism said they will be conducting inspections of these hotels and rentals stating “It’s essential that French and international tourists get their money’s worth.”
So what do you think? Would this be worth it to you? More importantly, how will this effect the upcoming Los Angeles Olympics coming in 2028. As of now, tickets are not available for that Olympics so no need to mortgage my house yet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/travel/paris-olympics-ticket-prices.html
https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/the-games/ceremonies/opening-ceremony
One reply on “The Paris Olympics Wants Your Money”
Hello Brian,
Your topic was interesting to me because I was reaching on prices spike for all tourist businesses like tours, hotels, flights and others for 2028 LA Olympics and with your Paris info it’s confirmed LA prices are going to be crazy.