"You can really feel how nervous and scared people are," said 40-year-old South African Shaun Bruwer. He was at a train station when the sound of a pigeon getting electrocuted on the tracks "sent people running in all directions."
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Business activity in the wider economy was also slowing in November, according to a survey published Monday by financial data company Markit. The health of the tourism sector is crucial for central Paris, as it employs almost 200,000 people out of a population of just over two million people. More than 22 million people stayed in hotels in 2013, the latest available figures from the government.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls was meeting Monday with representatives from tour operators, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants as well as travel companies such as Air France, to find a short-term plan to boost the industry.
The meeting will also look for ways to tailor the marketing of Paris as a holiday destination for tourists fearful of a repeat of the attacks that killed 130 people and left hundreds more injured. Even as airlines operated a normal schedule of flights into and out of Paris, many travelers with plans to visit the French capital have reconsidered their options, a worrisome sign for the travel and tourism industries.
Joe Nardozzi, a 31-year-old New York investment banker, and his wife won't be taking the wedding-anniversary trip they planned later this month. "I have no interest in losing my life over a trip to Paris," he said.
Blake Fleetwood, president of New York-based Cook Travel, said about 10 customers out of the roughly 30 with trips booked to Paris told him they want to cancel. Tourism to the French capital already took a hit earlier this year after attacks by Islamic extremists in January on a satirical magazine and a Jewish market. The number of hotel stays fell 3.3 percent in the first three months of the year.
Economists say that attacks of this kind tend to have a short-term impact, but that tourism tends to rebound. It's still too soon to say how big or lasting an impact the November attacks will have. Marie Jensen, a 22-year old from Denmark, made it a point of following through with her four-day trip, in part as an act of defiance against the attackers.
"I came because I don't want terrorists to control what I do," she said. "Yes, it feels a little strange. But if I hadn't come, they'd have won."
Pan Pylas in London contributed to this report.