Paris City Performance, Brand Strength and Reputation

6 February 20183 January 2020 The Editorial Team city brand, city image, Europe, France, Paris, reputation

Paris: the French capital is one of the best-known cities and among the most popular tourist destinations worldwide. It has for centuries been a global reference for culture, travel, art, and commerce. Events such as the yearly Fashion Week or the COP21 in 2015 guarantee continued international attention.

However, Paris has also faced severely negative episodes in recent years due to repeated terrorist attacks (January and November 2015, among others). Does the city still enjoy a good brand image and performance? What do the different indices say about the reputation of Paris, its innovation capacity, business attractiveness, and sustainability?

Let’s take a closer look at:

Paris’ reputation performance
Influence and innovation capacity of Paris
Paris’ environmental performance
How attractive for digital nomads?
Cultural and creative offerings in Paris
Ease of doing business in the French capital

How strong is the brand and reputation of Paris?

With a recently renovated image for the Paris Office du Tourisme, introduced in 2016, the city is betting on a more contemporary and less cliché feel for the French capital.

According to the Anholt-GFK Roper City Brand Index, which evaluates the power and appeal of a city’s image, in 2015 Paris won back the 1st position from London. This was possible thanks to its remarkable performance in international presence and quality of place, which refers to physical outdoors aspect and transport.

However, in the City RepTrack 2017, a global index that measures the overall reputation of leading cities around the world, Paris ranked only 24^th out of 56. Despite the French capital being the leader in terms of city awareness, several others outrank it for likeability, support, and loyalty, including Sydney, Copenhagen and Vienna.

How innovative and influential is Paris?

Putting aside the influence Paris and France have been acquiring at a European and global level with Mr. Emmanuel Macron’s Presidency, the French capital has also been investing in infrastructure and innovation initiatives for a while. In 2017 the city ranked 3^rd in the Global Cities Index, which measures global influence performance and potential, where Paris scored 53.2 and 62.3 respectively.

Surpassed only by New York and London, Paris is part of the global influence elite. Thanks to its recent improvements in economics (foreign direct investment, infrastructure, proliferation of business incubators) and governance, the city moved from 13^th position in 2016 to 3^rdin 2017.

In terms of innovation, Paris has maintained its role as Europe’s second-best hub for innovation. In 2018, it holds 9^th position in the Innovation Cities index that evaluates 500 cities across the world.

As for the Global Power City Index, which evaluates the appeal of cities through the eyes of global actors such as managers, researchers, artists, visitors and residents, Paris ranked 4^th out of 44 with a score of 1282.1/1800. It was placed after London, New York and Tokyo. Accessibility (1^st), cultural interaction (3^rd) and livability (7^th) were its most remarkable dimensions as measured by the index. Research and development (10^th), economy (12^th) and environment (28^th) were the less performing ones.

Is Paris a sustainable city?

In terms of environment and sustainability, Paris still has a way to go. The city was ranked 15^thin the Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index 2016, which integrates the people (20^th), planet (32^nd) and profit (9^th) dimensions into sustainability.

Likewise, the city was ranked only 10/30 in Europe, with a score of 73.21 by the Green Cities Index, which measures city performance through 30 indicators, including environmental governance, CO2 emissions, energy, buildings, transport, waste & land use, air quality and water, among others.

Cultural vibrancy

With a score of 63.2 points, Paris is the overall leader of the 2017 Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor. It holds first position in two of the three main pillars, cultural vibrancy and creative economy, and 2^nd position for its enabling environment.

All in all, Paris is strongest in jobs in arts, culture & entertainment, community design applications and average appearances in university rankings, where – like Barcelona – it scores 100/100. It is also one of the leaders in terms of number of museum visitors and concerts and shows. On the other hand, Paris scores extremely low for integration of foreigners (6.7/100) and also shows fairly low levels of people trust.

Resonance Consultancy’s 2018 World’s Best Cities ranking puts Paris on a very high 3^rdposition. The French capital is in the very front of the index for product (2^nd ), promotion (3^rd ) and programming (4^th). The pillar of place, which expresses the perceived quality of a city’s natural and built environment, is evaluated much lower (44^th) in the performance of Paris.

How attractive for digital nomads?

It will likely come as no surprise that Paris is considered very expensive to live in. This is stressed several times in the Digital Nomad List’s ranking. In addition, the stereotype is testified that many Parisians lack the ability to speak English, leading to a low ranking and deserving a special mention in the list’s pros and cons section. Paris scores much better in most other categories, including ease of doing cashless payments. This is also what the country in general scores best in, according to the Digital Life Abroad report.

Paris is only ranked 48^th out of 56 cities in the Digital Nomad Index. The city is only represented in a top 20 list twice: its start-up score and cafés with free Wi-Fi.

Unsurprisingly, Paris gets bad marks for cost of living, measured by the cost of a beer (49^th). The average rental cost of a one-bedroom apartment is also considered high, compared to other cities around the world.

Is Paris a good place for doing business?

The French capital in 2016 accounted for 30.9% of France’s GDP (Paris Region: Key Figures 2016). In terms of ease of doing business, the city was ranked by the World Bank’s Doing Business study as 31^st out of 190, preceded by Copenhagen (Denmark), London (UK) and Oslo (Norway).

Trading across borders proved to be Paris’ best indicator (1^st), whereas registering property was pointed out as the most complicated one (100^th).

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