Hotels & Meetings in France

Are you looking for information on hotels hosting meetings, seminars or events? Or maybe you are a hotel looking to develop the Meetings & Events area? Discover our selection of articles! Enjoy your reading!

Hotels are an integral part of the event landscape in France. This sector allows the event industry and CRMs such as Lab Event to make their mark and prove what they are capable of.

From the Latin hospitallis, in the Middle Ages, a hostelry was a part of a monastery open to the public (pilgrims or foreigners), reserved for their reception and accommodation. Over the centuries, the word “hôtellerie” was transformed into “hotel” and designated an establishment where one could stay for one or more nights.

With 18,807 hotels and similar establishments, France had a capacity of 1,284,000 beds on January ¹, 2015. These hotels are classified from 1 to 5 stars according to the standard they offer and some can even be qualified as “exceptional” or “Palace” hotels. There are currently 31 in France (for example the George V in Paris, the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz or the Cheval Blanc in Courchevel).

These establishments occasionally host seminars, conferences and large-scale meetings in rooms designed for this purpose in order to give participants an exceptional experience. It is common for a company to use a hotel to organize its important meetings or seminars, in order to be able to discuss important issues in a neutral and exceptional place. It is therefore important for all event agencies to have such venues in their database in order to best satisfy a client.

Here are some interesting figures to know about the hotel and restaurant sector in France:

• It is no secret that France, with its 81.9 million visitors, is the world’s leading tourist destination, representing nearly 70 million overnight stays by foreigners, which is an opportunity for hotels, even though China is experiencing increasingly dynamic tourism.
• The hotel and restaurant industry also represents a turnover of 70 billion euros, or almost 2.5% of the turnover of market services.
• This sector is the 6^th largest employer in France, behind sectors such as transport and logistics, construction, insurance, etc., which represents 960,000 employees. Moreover, 47% of employees are women!
• In terms of seasonal employment, the hotel and restaurant sector generates 300,000 jobs in the summer and up to 100,000 in the winter.
• Almost half of the sector’s professionals are concentrated in three regions: Ile-de-France (20%), Auvergnes-Rhône-Alpes (13.4%) and PACA (10.2%).
• Finally, 9 out of 10 companies in this sector are VSEs.

These figures clearly show the importance of this sector in the French event industry and also demonstrate the need for an event agency to select its partners carefully.

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