Anyone who’s ever visited or lived near a major tourist attraction knows the heavy sigh that accompanies the arrival of a double-decker tour bus, and the instinct to run before a horde of camera-wielding tourists descends upon the site.
Well, in Paris, those sighs might soon be turning to ones of relief. The deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, recently told Le Parisien that, “Buses are no longer welcome in the very heart of the city.” New legislation is currently under consideration that would ban tour buses from the city center and create bus depots outside the city where tour groups would have to leave their wards to fend for themselves using–how could they?–public transportation such as the metro, bicycles, and buses of the commuter variety.
This could have a massive effect on tourism, as many large tourism companies rely on buses to escort the largest possible number of visitors at one time, many of whom are willing to pay through the nose for a pre-planned trip that hits all the spots in a few short hours. But considering the massive number of tourists the city brings in every year, it looks like the only people who will truly be hurting are the bus companies themselves.
