Tourism

Although the tourism sector currently makes up 2% of GDP and attracted nearly 982,000 tourists in 2012, the government hopes to raise the sector’s GDP contribution to 5% by 2015 and boost visitor numbers to 2.5m. The 2009 Complementary Finance Law introduced a number of fiscal incentives aimed at increasing sector activity, such as cheaper access to government land and better interest rates on loans used for tourism developments. Proposed hotel and infrastructure projects will potentially raise the number of hotel beds to 75,000 by 2015 and create 30,000 new jobs. In parallel with efforts to expand tourism facilities, a number of initiatives are also aimed at ensuring that the country has sufficiently skilled human resources capacity. This chapter contains an interview with Pierre-Frédéric Roulot, President and CEO, Louvre Hotels Group.