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Inflation spike in Europe is tied to the Olympics, Taylor Swift: UBS

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A general view of the Eiffel Tower with the Olympics rings pictured with national flags of competing countries from the Place du Trocadero ahead of Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 21, 2024 in Paris, France.

Kevin Voigt | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

The Olympic Games are causing a surge in prices, but French consumers aren’t likely to feel its pinch.

Mega events like the Olympics, or even big concerts like Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, lead to a rise in demand for hotel — rooms and airline tickets, as well as other goods and services needed by the influx of visitors. Even so, most consumers may not feel the impact, according to UBS. 

Still, the data might suggest otherwise. That’s because the method for calculating consumer price changes might pick up the spiking costs in industries associated with tourism — like hotels — and provide a distorted impression.

“The Olympic Games or a Taylor Swift concert create a sudden demand shock,” wrote Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, in a recent analyst note. “The measurement method for these prices is more likely to capture the unusual and transitory pattern of demand, and it is here that the increase in consumer price inflation takes place.”

Taylor Swift performs onstage during The Eras Tour at Wembley Stadium on June 21, 2024, in London.

Kevin Mazur | Getty Images

This was already seen with the Eras Tour, as it boosted hotel revenue in cities across the U.S. where Swift was performing.

This year, U.K. hotel prices increased in June, but Donovan said the higher costs “may have been borne by a select group of aficionados of Swift’s music” given that the Eras Tour came to Wembley Stadium that month.

Meanwhile, the Summer Games are causing a similar phenomenon in Paris. “The tourists flocking to Paris for the Olympics, and paying the price, are not representative of French consumers,” he wrote.

A Parisian hotel boom?

Though hotels in the City of Light struggled in the beginning of July, with an estimated 60% drop in occupancy rates that prompted hotels to discount rates, the trend during the Games has reversed. Paris hotel occupancy levels during the Olympics, which started on July 26 and run until Sunday, are up versus last year, according to global real estate data company CoStar. But in the days after the closing ceremony, Paris hotel bookings are projected to drop from a year ago.

The city’s hotel industry has also seen massive year-over-year price increases. For each day during the first full week of this year’s Games from July 28 until Aug. 3, CoStar found a 206% year-over-year growth in weekly revenue per available room. That was fueled by a 17.4 percentage point rise in occupancy to 85.4% as well as a gain in the average daily rate (ADR) of 143%.

The Paris tourist office expects an occupancy rate of 86% from Aug. 5 through Sunday.

A notable price surge has also been seen in other parts of France. In the surrounding Île-de-France region, CoStar found that ADR grew 83.4% in the week ended July 27 from a year ago. At the same time, Paris occupancy fell 5.7 percentage points year over year, while ADR jumped by 90.8%.

“Is your average French person looking to stay in Paris at the moment? No, they are absolutely not, not unless they’re insane or going to the Olympics,” he told CNBC in an interview. “Most of them are unaffected by the surge in prices.”

Olympic gains

That said, the Games are drawing huge numbers of tourists. During the first week alone, the Paris tourist office reported 1.73 million visitors in Greater Paris, an 18.9% increase from 2023.

Of these, 924,000 were international tourists — about a 14% uptick from last year — with the largest number of foreign visitors coming from the U.S. French tourists coming to the city rose 25.1% to 803,000 from last year.

In all, the tourist office has estimated a total of 15.3 million visitors for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, with 11.3 million for the former and 4 million for the latter.

Tourists take selfies in front of the Arc de Triomphe on July 07, 2023 in Paris, France. Paris will host the Summer Olympics from July 26 till August 11, 2024. 

Matthias Hangst | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Tourists pass near a banner with the Paris 2024 logo before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games on June 17, 2024 in Paris, France. 

Chesnot | 

Small businesses across the city have also seen gains. Visa found that those businesses received a year-ove-year sales boost of 26% from cardholders in the Games’ first weekend.

While the long-term economic impact of the Paris Olympics is still uncertain, Donovan expects that “on balance it will probably be a positive,” citing past Games that have seen tourism booms like Barcelona in 1992. “If you get it right, it can be a boost,” he said, noting that Summer Olympics tend to garner more attraction than the Winter Olympics in general.

Paris 2024 may generate as much as $12 billion, or 11.1 billion euros, in long-term economic impact, a recent study from the Centre for Law and Economics of Sport estimated. The International Olympic Committee said the next two Summer Olympics could see even more value being created.

“What we see is that the economic impact of the Games is very substantial,” said Christophe Dubi, the Olympic Games executive director. “This is an injection of resources in the local economy that leaves a profound impact now and in the future.”

The IOC’s Agenda 2020 reforms have helped the events become more sustainable economically, according to Victor Matheson, an economist and professor at the College of the Holy Cross.

This will be the first Summer Games projected to cost under $10 billion since Sydney 2000. Money was saved by having 95% of the venues be preexisting or temporary and the strategy could mark a “turning point” for the the Olympic movement, Matheson said.

“The IOC has allowed Paris to come through with an Olympics that doesn’t build these billion-dollar monuments at the Olympics and doesn’t gold-plate everything there,” he said. “Those sorts of things that can drive up costs pretty quickly, they don’t appear to be pushing that.”

Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.

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Economics

Will Elon Musk’s cash splash pay off in Wisconsin?

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TO GET A sense of what the Republican Party thinks of the electoral value of Elon Musk, listen to what Brad Schimel, a conservative candidate for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, has to say about the billionaire. At an event on March 29th at an airsoft range (a more serious version of paintball) just outside Kenosha, five speakers, including Mr Schimel, spoke for over an hour about the importance of the election to the Republican cause. Mr Musk’s political action committees (PACs) have poured over $20m into the race, far more than any other donor’s. But over the course of the event, his name came up precisely zero times.

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Economics

German inflation, March 2025

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Customers shop for fresh fruits and vegetables in a supermarket in Munich, Germany, on March 8, 2025.

Michael Nguyen | Nurphoto | Getty Images

German inflation came in at a lower-than-expected 2.3% in March, preliminary data from the country’s statistics office Destatis showed Monday.

It compares to February’s 2.6% print, which was revised lower from a preliminary reading, and a poll of Reuters economists who had been expecting inflation to come in at 2.4% The print is harmonized across the euro area for comparability. 

On a monthly basis, harmonized inflation rose 0.4%. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, came in at 2.5%, below February’s 2.7% reading.

Meanwhile services inflation, which had long been sticky, also eased to 3.4% in March, from 3.8% in the previous month.

The data comes at a critical time for the German economy as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs loom and fiscal and economic policy shifts at home could be imminent.

Trade is a key pillar for the German economy, making it more vulnerable to the uncertainty and quickly changing developments currently dominating global trade policy. A slew of levies from the U.S. are set to come into force this week, including 25% tariffs on imported cars — a sector that is key to Germany’s economy. The country’s political leaders and car industry heavyweights have slammed Trump’s plans.

Meanwhile Germany’s political parties are working to establish a new coalition government following the results of the February 2025 federal election. Negotiations are underway between the Christian Democratic Union, alongside its sister party the Christian Social Union, and the Social Democratic Union.

While various points of contention appear to remain between the parties, their talks have already yielded some results. Earlier this month, Germany’s lawmakers voted in favor of a major fiscal package, which included amendments to long-standing debt rules to allow for higher defense spending and a 500-billion-euro ($541 billion) infrastructure fund.

This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.

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Economics

First-quarter GDP growth will be just 0.3% as tariffs stoke stagflation conditions, says CNBC survey

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One before landing in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., March 28, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Policy uncertainty and new sweeping tariffs from the Trump administration are combining to create a stagflationary outlook for the U.S. economy in the latest CNBC Rapid Update.

The Rapid Update, averaging forecasts from 14 economists for GDP and inflation, sees first quarter growth registering an anemic 0.3% compared with the 2.3% reported in the fourth quarter of 2024. It would be the weakest growth since 2022 as the economy emerged from the pandemic.

Core PCE inflation, meanwhile, the Fed’s preferred inflation indicator, will remain stuck at around 2.9% for most of the year before resuming its decline in the fourth quarter.

Behind the dour GDP forecasts is new evidence that the decline in consumer and business sentiment is showing up in real economic activity. The Commerce Department on Friday reported that real, or inflation-adjusted consumer spending in February rose just 0.1%, after a decline of -0.6% in January. Action Economics dropped its outlook for spending growth to just 0.2% in this quarter from 4% in the fourth quarter.

“Signs of slowing in hard activity data are becoming more convincing, following an earlier worsening in sentiment,” wrote Barclays over the weekend.

Another factor: a surge of imports (which subtract from GDP) that appear to have poured into the U.S. ahead of tariffs.

The good news is the import effect should abate and only two of the 12 economists surveyed see negative growth in Q1. None forecast consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Oxford Economics, which has the lowest Q1 estimate at -1.6%, expects a continued drag from imports but sees second quarter GDP rebounding to 1.9%, because those imports will eventually end up boosting growth when they are counted in inventory or sales measures.

Recession risks rising

On average, most economists forecast a gradual rebound, with second quarter GDP averaging 1.4%, third quarter at 1.6% and the final quarter of the year rising to 2%.

The danger is an economy with anemic growth of just 0.3% could easily slip into negative territory. And, with new tariffs set to come this week, not everyone is so sure about a rebound.

“While our baseline doesn’t show a decline in real GDP, given the mounting global trade war and DOGE cuts to jobs and funding, there is a good chance GDP will decline in the first and even the second quarters of this year,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. “And a recession will be likely if the president doesn’t begin backtracking on the tariffs by the third quarter.”

Moody’s looks for anemic Q1 growth of just 0.4% that rebounds to 1.6% by year end, which is still modestly below trend.

Stubborn inflation will complicate the Fed’s ability to respond to flagging growth. Core PCE is expected at 2.8% this quarter, rising to 3% next quarter and staying roughly at that level until in drops to 2.6% a year from now.

While the market looks to be banking on rate cuts, the Fed could find them difficult to justify until inflation begins falling more convincingly at the end of the year.

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