Three theme parks in Cergy-Pontoise: Val-d’Oise hotel supply starts at 870 rooms

What the Élysée officialised on 24 August

The signing took place at the close of Mohammed bin Salman’s state visit to France. The protocol commits Qiddiya Investment Company, a subsidiary of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF, to develop three theme parks on the former Mirapolis site in Courdimanche, on the outskirts of Cergy-Pontoise. Six billion euros, up to 22,000 direct jobs and, according to Emmanuel Macron, up to 80,000 indirect jobs. This is the largest tourism investment announced in France since Disneyland Paris.

The programme is not limited to attractions. It includes hotels and restaurants, as well as several thousand homes. The first park will be dedicated to the world of manga, led by Dragon Ball. Qiddiya is not new to this: the group is already building a Dragon Ball park in Qiddiya City, near Riyadh, the renderings of which give an idea of its scale and architectural vocabulary.

Mirapolis, a wasteland since 1991

The location was not chosen by chance: it is the site of a precedent. Opened in 1987, Mirapolis was intended to be the great French theme park, based on characters from national literature, with a thirty-five-metre Gargantua as its totem. It closed in 1991, after four seasons. Since then, the land has been waiting. The site has the rare advantage in Île-de-France of being vast, available and already designated for leisure in urban planning documents.

The perimeter is located about thirty kilometres north-west of Paris, between Courdimanche, Cergy and Vauréal. Cergy-Pontoise has a station served by the RER A and the Transilien, which few available sites of this size can claim in the Paris region.

870 rooms, and nothing above mid-range

This is where the question becomes professional. MKG data measures the scale of the gap: around the site, the hotel supply peaks at 870 rooms, distributed exclusively across the budget and mid-range segments. No upscale establishments, no luxury. RevPAR remained under 40 euros this summer, in the height of the season. In other words, the Val-d’Oise is preparing to welcome a global destination with a hotel stock calibrated for a suburban business clientele.

The calculation is simple to make, even if it is difficult to resolve. A destination aiming for several million annual visitors and 22,000 direct jobs generates a demand for accommodation out of all proportion to 870 rooms. The question is therefore not whether the supply will grow, but who will build it, on what land, and at what speed relative to the parks.

Dragon Ball is confirmed, the other two parks are not

Only one theme has been made public: manga, with Dragon Ball as the central figure of the first park. The other two remain confidential, and there is no indication at this stage that they will remain within the realm of Japanese animation. It is precisely this unknown that determines the customer profile, and therefore the type of hotels to be built. A family park and a park for young adults do not fill the same rooms, nor at the same price.

This exercise is not without purpose. It serves as a reminder that this kind of destination is built in volumes: an artificial mountain, a lagoon, a central square, and around them, hotels that are part of the scenery rather than just bordering it. This is the difference between a hotel located near a park and a hotel that belongs to the park, and it is worth several tens of euros in average daily rate.

The only useful French precedent

The comparison with Marne-la-Vallée is inevitable, and it is instructive. In 1992, Seine-et-Marne was in a comparable situation: a suburban territory, a limited hotel supply and a foreign operator with an extraordinary project. Thirty years later, the Val d’Europe sector has several dozen hotels, operated both by the park operator and by third-party groups located nearby. The real lesson of Disneyland Paris is not the number of rooms built, but the share that the operator kept for itself.

For French hotel groups, the strategic window is opening now, not in 2032. Land around Courdimanche, Vauréal and Cergy will become more expensive as soon as the exact perimeter is decided. Operators who position themselves after planning permissions are granted will pay for the land at the destination’s price, not at the Val-d’Oise price.

A timeline yet to be written

At this stage, it is a protocol, not a permit. The three parks will be built and opened successively, over several years, and no firm deadline has been communicated. The horizon mentioned for the first opening is around 2032. Between the announcement and the first overnight stay, the entire regulatory process remains.

This process will include, at least, the definition of the operational perimeter, the alignment of the planning documents of the municipalities concerned, an environmental assessment and a public consultation phase. Each of these stages is an opportunity for appeals. It is the actual timeline on which hotel investment decisions depend, far more than the announced opening date.

The opinion of La Revue des Hôtels

Two figures summarise the project: six billion on one side, 870 rooms on the other. The gap between the two is the real news of this announcement for our sector. It does not mean that there is a shortage of hotels in the Val-d’Oise today, since the RevPAR of 40 euros indicates a market in equilibrium for what it serves. It says that an entire market will have to be created from almost nothing. The Val-d’Oise is not going to move upmarket; it will have to invent a segment it has never had.

Usual caution remains. A protocol of intent signed at the Élysée is not a construction site, and the history of major leisure projects in France includes more announcements than openings. Mirapolis, precisely, is one of them. We will follow the project step by step, starting with the publication of the operational perimeter.