PARIS — Airbnb is offering a night for two in the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris this summer, transforming a box in the theater into a plush bedroom with sweeping views of the famous auditorium.

The Phantom of the Opera-themed stay — a nod to the novel by Gaston Leroux and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical — comes as tourism bounces back in Europe after several years of pandemic disruptions, with visitors from the United States arriving in France in droves since last summer.

European capitals are also gearing up for the return of Chinese tourists, following the lifting of travel restrictions.

Before the pandemic, Airbnb had created other unusual overnight stays in the French capital, one of its key markets. These included a shark tank in the city’s aquarium, the skull-lined catacombs, the Moulin Rouge cabaret and the glass pyramid in the Louvre.

The idea is to encourage people “to travel and dream at the same time — and raise a lot of emotions around travel,” Emmanuel Marill, Airbnb director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa told Reuters.

The Palais Garnier stay includes a music recital, dinner in an ornate rehearsal room backstage and a behind-the-scenes tour of the elaborate 19^th century building, including its underground pool, the inspiration for the phantom’s lair in the book and musical.

The Palais Garnier stay will be listed on March 1 for €37, also the number on the box, one of the theater’s most prestigious, which will be decked out with antique furniture specially for the night.

It will be offered on a first-come-first-serve basis to an applicant registered on the company’s online rental platform.

“It’s a bit of a fantasy. I think it will be a bit unreal,” said Veronique Dubrulle Leroux, the great-granddaughter of Phantom of the Opera author Leroux, who will host the visitors.

As part of the project, Airbnb will also fund the renovation of the theater’s 19^th century boxes and help the Opera de Paris to update its online streaming platform. — Reuters

DUBLIN — Offices in Dublin are on average only 10% full on Mondays and Fridays as employees continue to adopt a hybrid working model a year after Ireland’s last COVID-19 lockdown, a survey of 500 companies in the capital showed.

Hybrid arrangements, where employees go in part of the week, are reshaping businesses that serve office workers across the world, with knock-on effects for commercial real estate demand and service firms reliant on city center footfall.

The Irish research published by property agency Savills and the Dublin Chamber commerce body on Wednesday suggested offices in the main business district have an average occupancy rate of 0%-10% on Mondays and Fridays.

Occupancy rises to between 51%-60% on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and to 61%-70% on Wednesdays. Almost half of the firms surveyed said employees must spend at least two or three days in the office each week.

Despite the lower occupancy — which compared to a week-long rate of 91%-100% pre-pandemic — three quarters of the firms said they have not changed their office footprint, while 17% have decreased it and 7% added more space.

Separate research from real estate group CBRE on Tuesday showed that total office space bought or let last year was 2.5% below the 10-year annual average, leaving a vacancy rate of 11% or 14% including so-called “grey space,” where larger tenants are seeking to sublet parts of their offices. — Reuters