Much Greater Paris

The city that lives on tourism plans to spread its visitors around to redeveloped, revitalized suburbs

Emmanuel Fradin for TIME

La Grande Arche de la Defense is one of the most recognizable structures for tourists to visit in the suburb of Paris.

Like most of the world's favored travel destinations, tourism-dependent Paris is looking for ways to ride out what promises to be a dismal, recession-plagued 2009. There are bargains to be had, and the welcome mat will be out, defying Parisians' reputation for a certain aloofness when it comes to receiving visitors.

Yet it's not a lack of tourists that has Paris' city fathers concerned about the future. There will always be recessions, and tourists will always visit Paris, as long as there's a Louvre and an Eiffel Tower and that wondrous food. They have gone there for centuries, and tourism is...

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