Cherished by artists like Matisse and Chagall, the urban heart of the Côte d’Azur draws 5 million visitors annually to stroll its seaside Promenade des Anglais, pan bagnat in hand, and ponder how their lives got so good. Hospitality is red hot, with occupancy dependably above 85% in the summers.
New hotels are cropping up, and the recently opened hilltop L’Hôtel du Couvent is gleefully stealing headlines and a Michelin key to boot, while the downtown Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel basks in its new reno (and spa). Step out from your suite, and you’ll find a surprisingly bucolic city, with parks and gardens aplenty. In 2025, its Promenade du Paillon, which meanders from coastline to old-town Nice, grew another eight hectares. Every metre of this lush, tree-lined thoroughfare helps earn the city’s #12 Green Space ranking.
Could Nice get much nicer? Several long-term projects say “oui”: in the west of the city, there’s plans for an exhibition centre and a new landscape park; in its Port District, redevelopment is underway; and in its city centre, a new Palace of Arts and Culture is planned for 2030. An airport expansion is underway as well – and it sounds like Nice will need it.