How Does Paris Keep Its Olympic Village Running?

Sports fans aren’t the only people descending on Paris for this year’s Summer Olympics. There’s also the matter of the athletes competing — with over 10,000 elite competitors making their way to the City of Light this year. That, in turn, leads to another big question: how do you keep thousands of the world’s best athletes comfortable so that they can be in the right physical and mental space to compete?

In the case of the Paris Olympics, the answer involves bringing in experts in the field. As The Points Guy’s Cameron Sperance reports, this year’s Summer Games are working with the hospitality company Accor to factor what they know into tangible results for athletes’ comfort. Accor’s hotel brands are wide-ranging in terms of the level of service they offer; if you’ve stayed a a hotel operated by anyone from Swissôtel to Ibis, you’ve spent the night at an Accor property.

In an interview with The Points Guy, Patrick Mendes — the company’s CEO for Europe and North Africa — called working on the Olympics “probably one of the biggest operations I’ve had to manage.” It’s also not his first (Olympic) rodeo: Mendes worked in a similar capacity for the 2016 Summer Olympics. It led him to compare the logistics of the Olympic Village to operating 150 hotels.

American Olympians Are Bringing Air Conditioners to Paris

Comfort and sustainability are at odds here

The logistics don’t stop there. Different guests have different preferences for having their rooms cleaned; there’s also the matter of bathrooms and laundry services for thousands of athletes, to say nothing of three months’ worth of training for employees to prepare them for the experience of working at the Olympic Village. And while this year’s Olympics are winding down, Accor’s staff will still be busy when the 2024 Paralympics brings thousands more athletes to Paris later this month.