On a sunny afternoon this week, Eli Mwenda snapped photos of his sister Rebekah Mithinji at the Eiffel Tower, two of many tourists enjoying Paris after putting off vacation plans due to the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19 .
The trip to Paris for the brothers was a graduation gift for Mithinji, initially planned for 2020. Two years later, they finally made it, with Mithinji traveling from the UK and Mwenda from Kenya.
“I’m so glad we made it, it’s been so long,” Mithinji said, smiling.
“It’s refreshing, it feels like we’re getting back to normal,” added Mwenda. “Walking down the street, seeing people’s faces without masks, going to restaurants.”
The Paris tourist office predicts that foreign visits will increase more than fivefold between May and July compared to the same period last year, mainly thanks to tourists from Spain, Germany, the UK and Italy.
This, however, will still be a third lower than pre-pandemic levels, in part because tourists from U.S and gives Asia are not yet to return in large numbers.
At Chez Eugene, a restaurant on the picturesque Place du Tertre in the heart of Montmartre, manager Jonas Seignovert is relieved that tourists are starting to come back.
“We had some Italians, some Spaniards, some from Eastern European countries, some British, it’s still really European,” Seignovert said, adding that he also saw some Brazilian and American tourists, but virtually no Asians.
Source: CNN Brasil
