A quote from Ansamed, 27 August 2008

Oil dollars are flooding Paris, and are rescuing the tourist season of Ville Lumiere struck by a heavy decline (down 20.1% in terms of hotel overnight stays) in American tourists, in addition to, by a smaller rate, Japanese ones (down 8.1%). In the first half of the year the presence of rich tourists coming from the wealthy Gulf monarchies – like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – rose by 14% compared to the same period of 2007, and by 23.7% in terms of overnight stays in hotels, the director of the Paris tourism office, Paul Roll, said, showing his contentment. And it is well known that this clientele does not stay in the small two and three-star hotels, and not even in the four-star ones: luxury is and remains their codeword.