As of 2025, there is no such thing as a longer any bodily Paris Workplace of Tourism in essentially the most visited metropolis on this planet.
The Gradual Decline of the Paris Tourism Workplace
After I first arrived within the Nineties, the Paris Workplace of Tourism was on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. That appeared like essentially the most befitting deal with: frequented by vacationers, simple to search out, nice to go to. However then the lease on the Champs received too excessive, and in 2003 it was moved to the Rue des Pyramides, a facet road midway between the Louvre and the Palais Garnier. It was greater, if more durable for vacationers to search out, however nonetheless did its job of promoting tickets, serving to vacationers with bookings, maps, and recommendation. There have been additionally a number of “annex” workplaces on the Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon. In 2017 the Pyramides workplace lastly closed when the lease as soon as once more grew to become too excessive, and a brand new workplace was opened on the facet of the Hôtel de Ville (Metropolis Corridor), at 29 Rue de Rivoli. Centrally positioned and simple to search out, it shared area with a boutique promoting a choice of gadgets “Made in Paris” (it’s nonetheless there). In the course of the 2024 Olympic Video games, the area was reworked right into a welcome heart for the worldwide press, and the Tourism Workplace was unceremoniously moved right into a former youth heart close to the Eiffel Tower and renamed — bizarrely — “Spot24”. But, regardless of the tens of millions of vacationers passing proper in entrance of it all year long, it didn’t even make it to the summer time of 2025 earlier than closing completely.
What’s Left? A Web site, An App, and Kiosks
As an alternative, there’s the multi-lingual web site, Paris Je t’Aime, which has some sensible data, occasion listings, and primary information for lodging, museums, nightlife, buying, kids’s amusements, and transportation, nevertheless a lot of it’s so minimal that you just’ll nonetheless find yourself having to Google for more information (and the English model is filled with embarrassing factual errors…I don’t know who’s getting paid to put in writing it).
There’s a phone quantity: +33(0)1 49 52 42 81 (press “2” for English). It’s supposedly open each day 10am-5pm, nevertheless they don’t at all times reply, it simply rings and rings till you lastly get a message saying to name again one other time. There may be additionally an “instantaneous message” service (Whatsapp) the place I’ve by no means succeeded in getting any response.
There are additionally a number of taking part information kiosks and publish workplaces the place you should buy a go and get a free map. However these are secondary companies offered by companies usually servicing the native, not precise tourism professionals whose job it’s to reply vacationers’ questions or assist clear up issues.
What Providers Are Really Offered?
They’ve changed brochures and maps with an app (internet app, Apple and Android), which assumes vacationers all wish to stroll round Paris continuously watching their telephones (which can also be harmful, since they are often ripped out of your palms on the road in broad daylight, particularly in touristy areas of central Paris). However there’s additionally little PRACTICAL information, akin to “how do I get a metro go?” (the one information about public transportation in any respect on the app is beneath “FAQs” and nonetheless has outdated information about “carnets” that now not exist).
The tourism workplace web site itself has higher public transport into (principally linking you to the official Paris public transport web site), however they’re promoting transport passes at a HIGHER value than you’d get them at any metro station (for instance, their “Navigo Straightforward pre-loaded with 10 tickets” is €29.95. Nevertheless tickets are €2.55 every, and the Navigo Straightforward go is €2. So that they’re charging you greater than €2 extra to get it from them (they usually solely ship it to a French deal with, not outdoors France).
Additionally they promote their Paris Move Lib’, aka The Official Paris Metropolis Move, the place you select 3, 5, or 6 actions from a listing of about 30 museums (however not the Louvre), monuments (Eiffel Tower, however solely to the 2nd stage), and actions akin to river cruises, cooking lessons, and bike excursions. The go is at the moment priced at €59, €109, and €179, respectively. As soon as bought, you need to obtain the Paris Je t’Aime smartphone app to entry your Move and select the locations you wish to e book. I discover this Move fully bewildering, as a result of it doesn’t provide you with any particulars of the actions (What does “a guided tour of key districts of Paris” embody? How lengthy is it? How many individuals will probably be within the group? Is it out there every single day?) and most of the museums and monuments nonetheless require you to e book a separate time slot, which, for those who can’t get throughout your keep, too unhealthy, choose one thing else. I wouldn’t advocate it.
So what’s the Paris Tourism Workplace good for? Searching its free web site/app for some concepts of what to see and do in Paris, positive. However as a supply of free, dependable sensible data and a human to reply your questions? Nope.
The French trade journal En Contact wrote: ‘A centralized reception level is out of date and inefficient’, an assertion (by Corinne Menegaux, Director Basic of the Paris Vacationer Workplace since 2018), that appears to be dictated extra by the necessity to make financial savings than to adapt to the precise wants and expectations of vacationers.
Whereas it’s true lots of people use their telephones for the whole lot, even when touring. However ignoring those that don’t (or can’t), appears actually short-sighted. Some individuals can’t use smartphones. Some individuals get their telephones stolen or blocked whereas touring. And a few individuals simply favor to speak to an precise human, face-to-face, when visiting an unfamiliar place.
One in all my Secrets and techniques of Paris readers known as the Tourism Workplace telephone quantity to ask the place one may buy and cargo an Straightforward Navigo Move to make use of on the Paris busses with out happening into the metro (she’s aged and can’t take stairs). The agent mentioned to make use of the telephone app. When she mentioned she couldn’t use a smartphone as a result of she couldn’t work out methods to use the app, he mentioned there was no different choice for her. Certain, there are a number of metro stations with escalators or elevators, however not many, they usually’re not very dependable. If she had somebody she may belief to assist her take the time to set it up on her smartphone — ie a human at a tourism workplace — maybe she would have felt inspired sufficient to attempt it.
I take into account myself a reasonably savvy traveler, and but I nonetheless go to the tourism workplace after I go to a spot for the primary time or when I’ve a “difficult” query. For instance, on my journey to Budapest final spring I went to the Tourism Workplace to get the limitless public transport go. I already examine it on-line, however I had some questions on which was the very best for our scenario, and most well-liked to get it instantly from the tourism workplace moderately than on the window of a metro station (the place the locals won’t recognize being caught behind a vacationer with a bunch of questions).
The Tourism Workplace can also be the place vacationers can go once they have an issue, whether or not it’s a lodge reserving that received “misplaced”, getting help when a museum closes unexpectedly (like for strikes or robberies, ahem) and also you’ve already bought tickets for that day, and even whenever you’ve left your child’s stuffed rabbit within the airport bus and do not know methods to contact then to get it again. Not each drawback requires police or embassy help. And “simply Google it” isn’t at all times one of the best ways to discover a resolution in a rustic the place you don’t converse the language. Figuring out you’ll be able to go to the tourism workplace for help is at all times reassuring.
And most of all, the Tourism Workplace is THE ONE PLACE vacationers get to go to ask all of our “silly questions” with out feeling like we’re being pains within the tush. It’s the place we anticipate to be welcomed with endurance, and in a number of languages (English at all times being considered one of them, fortunate for us). It simply appears inconceivable that essentially the most visited vacationer vacation spot on this planet can’t be bothered to pay for one anymore.
Not That I’m a Fan…
Longtime Secrets and techniques of Paris readers is aware of I’ve by no means been an enormous fan of the Paris Tourism Workplace, even earlier than they closed their bodily workplaces. Why?
- I’ve been instructed by their workers (once they have been nonetheless bodily current) that they aren’t allowed to advocate something or have an opinion. If you need recommendation on a lodge or a restaurant, they merely provide you with a listing of all of them. I understand that is to be “neutral”, but it surely’s not very helpful for vacationers in search of greater than a glorified Yellow Pages. Individuals don’t want extra data, they want discernment (or at a minimal, an evidence of the variations to allow them to resolve for themselves).
- They’ll solely checklist companies which pay to be members of the Tourism Workplace. I used to be a member for a yr after I was a tour information and thought it wasn’t value what they charged me; they saved sending me giant teams of holiday makers who didn’t converse English, although I used to be clear in my description that I solely gave excursions in English for as much as six adults. Sadly, anybody generally is a member in the event that they pay the charge for the promotion. There are not any precise requirements past being legally a registered enterprise in France, and no ensures of high quality. If a bunch of vacationers report a nasty expertise with an organization listed by the Tourism Workplace, it doesn’t imply they’ll take away that enterprise from their listings.
- Lastly, I don’t know what they research in tourism college nowadays, however the individuals working on the Paris Tourism Workplace simply don’t appear very educated about Paris except you wish to purchase a ticket to one thing. As soon as I known as to ask which Paris bars serve Absinthe, and the particular person on the telephone didn’t even know that the liquor was legalized in France since 1988. “So I suppose you don’t learn about these bars, then?”
Regardless of all of this, I nonetheless assume that guests are higher off having at the least one place in Paris the place they will get help from the Tourism Workplace.
What about you?
Do you ever go to tourism workplaces whenever you journey? And if sure, what for? Do you assume Paris ought to have a bodily tourism workplace, even for those who by no means plan on going there?
