The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics promises to be spectacular: On the glittering waters of the Seine, a flotilla of barges will carry about 10,000 athletes to the foot of the Eiffel Tower, as nearly half a million spectators line the four-mile route to cheer on the event of the century.
Good luck, though, getting any one of the 100,000 ticketed seats to be front and center at the party. Those are mostly sold out — and the few left cost an eye-popping 2,700 euros, about $2,930 each. Tickets to watch another popular Olympic event, 10-meter men’s platform diving, start at €875. Women’s artistic gymnastics finals, a perennial crowd pleaser: around €1,799.
Paris Olympics organizers set a lofty goal for what they have called the People’s Games, promising to make the world’s most iconic sporting event equitable and accessible.
But get ready to pay up.
Seven months before the Olympic torch casts a glow in the City of Light this summer, the cost of getting into the most in-demand sports competitions, not to mention the price of accommodations and transportation, has risen — sometimes by Olympian proportions.
Many hotels and rental apartments have doubled or tripled their typical summer rates (think an average of €1,000 a night instead of €300), and some have even quintupled them. Airfares are rising fast. The cost of a Paris Metro ticket is temporarily doubling. Even the Louvre Museum and Palace of Versailles have ratcheted up admission fees.
Still dreaming of making the Olympic rendezvous? Don’t be too discouraged if you haven’t booked yet. The Games, which run from July 26 to Aug. 11, still have some ticket deals for large-crowd competitions like soccer and basketball. Spots also remain available for the Paralympics, from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8. And some prices could start to come down closer to the Games.
Paris will be its own extraordinary attraction, transformed into a giant outdoor arena with competitions like break dancing at Place de la Concorde and beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower. And President Emmanuel Macron will make cultural performances of all kinds free for two months in summer to fete the Olympic spirit.
Still, exactly how you experience the Games will depend on your budget. Here are some tips on what to expect.
Finding a place to stay
Paris is like a jewel box: dazzling but compact. With around 15 million visitors expected, and just around 85,000 guest rooms, hoteliers are taking full advantage of outsize demand. So are Parisians: Many are planning to flee the city, and are renting out their apartments at top dollar. Average Airbnb prices for Olympic dates have surpassed €500 a night.
At a typical Ibis hotel, a chain similar to Holiday Inn, expect to pay €400 to €700 a night for a fairly basic double room with Wi-Fi and breakfast, compared with €90 to €200 normally. A double room at the more upscale Hotel Ducs de Bourgogne near the Pont Neuf is priced on Booking.com at €1,500 a night, compared with €300 normally in summer.
Consumer associations, including UFC-Que Choisir, a French advocacy group, have denounced price increases that they say risk making the Olympics unaffordable to some.
The French government has said it won’t regulate prices, but will step up inspections of hotels and apartment rentals. “It’s essential that French and international tourists get their money’s worth,” said Olivia Grégoire, the minister in charge of tourism.
With the Games still months away, travelers can find less expensive accommodations that average closer to €450 to €550 a night, mainly at the outer edges of Paris or beyond the city limits, said Christie Hudson, a travel expert for Expedia.com.
But even there, the average cost of a one-night stay in the Île-de-France region that rings Paris is about €700 during the Olympics, compared with €169 last summer, according to the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau.
That trend could reverse: Some hotels haven’t released all their room inventory, and prices could come down as they seek to fill up their calendars. The downside of waiting is the risk of finding little available at the last minute — not ideal if you’ve already gotten your hands on event tickets or booked air travel.
Airbnb prices for Olympic dates have already cooled a touch, with rates for all listings, including private and shared rooms, now averaging around €542 a night, after surging to €746 in December, according to AirDNA, which tracks Airbnb booking trends. Tens of thousands of new listings have come online around France, and more supply is expected in the Paris region, a factor that should keep prices “affordable,” said a spokesman for Airbnb France.
If money is no object, hospitality offers via the Paris Games’ official partner, On Location, guarantee booking through all-inclusive packages that include tickets to select sports events and accommodation in three-, four- and five-star hotels. The options include €8,660 per person in a three-star hotel for eight nights and tickets only to rock climbing competitions, or €21,105 for a deluxe five-day package at the Waldorf Astoria in Versailles that includes the opening ceremony and equestrian events.
Travelers may need to watch out for sudden price jumps by hotels and rental hosts even after a booking is confirmed. Booking.com said it would compensate consumers for the cost difference in such cases. Airbnb said that hosts who tried to increase prices or cancel reservations after booking would face fees and penalties, and that the company would provide most guests with an instant credit to rebook immediately if their stay was canceled within 30 days of arrival.
Scoring tickets to events
If you’ve already gotten reasonably priced tickets, count yourself lucky. Around seven million have been purchased since sales began nearly a year ago on the official Paris 2024 ticketing website. But you can still get into a variety of events, especially team sports at venues outside Paris, including soccer at the 80,700-seat stadium in St.-Denis.
Tickets priced from €90 to €250 also remain for volleyball, handball, archery, badminton and weight lifting, mostly for non-medal competitions.
But blockbuster sports have become all but inaccessible, unless you are willing to splurge. Tickets to events like gymnastics and diving are currently unavailable on the official website. Prices topped €600 before the blocks that had been made available sold out.
Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, has defended prices and said that tickets are cheaper than those of the 2012 London Olympics.
Bundles of new tickets are released every so often, and organizers urge visitors to check the website frequently or sign up for alerts. More spots will become available on April 17, when the official, and only authorized, resale platform for ticket holders goes online.
At this stage, though, much of the only remaining access to very high-demand events is through On Location’s pricey “hospitality packages,” with options like men’s springboard diving tickets starting at €695 and opening ceremony access ranging from €5,000 to €9,500 per person.
On Location offers a “wide variety” of packages, said Will Whiston, the company’s executive vice president for Olympics and Paralympics, adding that its prices were “in line with and, in some cases, lower than previous Games.”
Getting to, and around, Paris
Round-trip airfares to Paris are already starting to creep up. Nonstop flights on Expedia.com from New York to Paris start at around $1,300 the weekend before the Olympics, up from an average of $1,000 last summer. Generally, travelers can get the best airfare by booking 60 days out. But “prices are expected to increase as the travel dates get closer, so it’s smart to book sooner rather than later,” said Ms. Hudson, the travel expert at Expedia.
If you’re willing to travel light, consider using a discount carrier such as French Bee, which flies round-trip from New York to Paris-Orly Airport for $975, without checked baggage, or Icelandair, requiring a stopover in Reykjavik, starting at about $800 round-trip, also without checked bags. Another option is to fly into an alternate airport, either in France or a nearby country like Belgium, Britain or Germany, and take a train.
Once in Paris, brace yourself for getting around. Olympics organizers want to slash the Games’ carbon footprint, and swaths of the city will be closed to cars. Organizers are placing a premium on walking, cycling and public transportation.
While Metro prices are jumping to €4 per ride, tourists can buy a Paris 2024 pass costing €16 a day, or €70 per week, allowing travel across the Île-de-France region, including to and from Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.
Paris has added about 55 miles of new cycling lanes to the more than 270 miles already carved out in the city, encouraging visitors to use them. The Velib rental program is being expanded to add 3,000 more bikes to the current 22,000-strong fleet.
Despite all the potential hassles, Mr. Estanguet, the head of the organizing committee, has promised that the Games will be worth the trip. “Let me convince you to come, because this moment is unique,” he said. “You won’t see it again, and you won’t be disappointed.”