Visa: 78% of Purchases at Paris Olympics Involved Contactless Payments

About three-quarters of the international purchases made in Paris during the first weekend of the Olympic Games were made with contactless payments.

Seventy-eight percent of those purchases were contactless, a figure that was 9% higher than that for the same weekend a year earlier, Visa said in a Tuesday (Aug. 6) press release.

Visa, which is the Official Payment Technology Partner of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, built a custom payment network across Paris and beyond over the last three years to ensure that Visa contactless payments are accepted at 3,500 points of sale at the Games’ venues, according to the release.

The company announced these figures while also sharing other data about spending in Paris and other Olympic event venues during the Games’ opening weekend (July 26-28).

“Our latest data shows a significant increase in consumer spending among Visa cardholders during the Opening Ceremony Weekend,” Charlotte Hogg, CEO of Visa Europe, said in the release. “We’re particularly pleased to see the uptick in spending at French small businesses after we helped 13 million of them digitize over the last four years in Europe and connected them to spectators through the Visa Go app.”

Visa Go is a new mobile app for Olympic Games attendees who are Visa cardholders, PYMNTS reported Monday (Aug. 5). The app offers access to unique experiences and exclusive content, and spotlights Team Visa athletes and shares their progress during the 2024 Paris Games.

During the opening weekend, small businesses in Paris saw a 26% year-on-year increase in sales from Visa cardholders, according to the Tuesday press release.

Other cities hosting Olympic events also saw year-over-year rises in spending, with Saint-Etienne up 214%, Lille up 100% and Marseille up 38%, the release said.

U.S. Visa cardholders accounted for the largest share of overseas spend (29%), while Japanese Visa cardholders accounted for the largest year-over-year increase in overseas spend (129%), per the release.

In the leadup to the Games, there was a 39% increase in flight bookings to Paris and a 120% rise in travel to Paris by travelers under the age of 35, according to the release.