PARIS — It was once the Americans, then the Japanese, then the Russians. Now it’s the Chinese.

In recent months, Paris has been dominated by the Chinese, who have begun to travel abroad in large numbers, and who come here less to eat than to shop. According to Atout France, the French tourism development agency, individual visas are still expensive and restricted for Chinese visitors. So they come mostly on bus tours organized back home, usually for trips of 10 to 15 days that often start in Germany, with stops in Switzerland, Italy or the Netherlands. They almost always end in Paris, and it is in Paris that most do their shopping.

In 2010, Chinese visitors spent about $890 million in France, 60 percent more than in 2009, according to Atout France.

More Americans than Chinese come to Paris, of course, but they spend less. An American’s shopping expenditures run to 40 percent of a Chinese visitor’s. Only the Russian tourist spends more than the Chinese one, and only slightly.

The Chinese come, for the most part, to the large department stores, the “grands magasins” like Galeries Lafayette and Au Printemps, which sit side by side on the Boulevard Haussmann, each with its own glorious, stained-glass domes, two churches of capitalism.