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Bike sellers, restaurateurs… who are the winners and losers of the strike?

2020-01-25T06:52:03.355Z


By upsetting the habits of Parisians, the transport strike has had enormous repercussions on different sectors of activity.


A winter like no other. By modifying daily habits, the marathon strike in transport transport disrupted many sectors of economic activity, particularly in Île-de-France.

From teleworking, which cost dearly to restaurants in the midday niche, to "velotaf", which has boosted bicycle sales, companies are already taking stock. Positive, for some of them. Others can only see the damage.

THE WINNERS

Cycle merchants

Closed metro lines mean that the little queen has stormed the streets of the capital. GO Sport mentions a “big boom” in bicycle sales, with an increase of almost 80%, and “a jump” in electric assistance bikes (VAE).

"In addition to the cycles themselves, there has been a big demand in terms of equipment, such as light or anti-theft, as well as in our workshops, with customers who have come to have their equipment checked before the use to go to work. "

The same is true at Décathlon, where a “three-digit” increase was observed on all types of bicycle. Other departments have taken advantage of the hassle of Parisians since the brand claims to have also recorded an increase in sales of sneakers and other walking shoes, as well as scooters.

In the same vein, the start-up Cyclofix, which presents itself as the leader in mobile repair of bikes and scooters in France, reports requests "multiplied by four" since the start of the strikes.

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Carpool services

When questioned, the carpool leader BlaBlacar praises "exceptional levels" of use on all its activities since the start of the social movement. Since unity is strength, especially in the case of a RER in a carafe, nearly 500,000 new users have registered since the strikes began, out of a total of nearly 1.5 million members.

The BlablaLines service, dedicated to commuting, was particularly requested: on December 9, the company observed 20 times more online registrations than a usual day. At Klaxit, a short-haul service to his workplace, journeys increased by 25% and 100,000 new people have registered since the end of November.

Child care

For the platform for connecting parents and baby-sitters Yoopies, the strike was also good. During national mobilization days such as December 5, many schools closed, which enabled the company to record an increase of "200%" in its activity.

Subsequently, the platform also saw parents requesting more hours of after-school care. "Parents who used to go home at 6 p.m. couldn't arrive until 8 p.m. because of traffic jams," she says. So, instead of 10 hours a week, they needed twice as much. "

Alternative transport

Stationary trains have encouraged travelers to take long-distance buses. Market leader German operator FlixBus has seen a 40% increase in trips between November and December. Last year, this variation, normally linked to the winter holidays, was only 15%.

The hybrid bikes also recorded a revival of activity in the absence of public transport. The volume of driver requests on the Bolt application has doubled despite prices rising by 70% on average. At Kapten, demand was three times higher in December than the previous month, with more than four million races ordered from Île-de-France.

The industry leader, Uber, completed 15% more races in the Paris region. The races shared in UberPool doubled between the start of the strike and the school holidays.

The free-floating offers

Convenient for spinning on cycle paths and less sporty than cycling, the scooter has been popular in Paris. The American rental company Lime recorded more than 1.5 million trips in December. This is almost twice as much as in November.

The young shoot registered 4,000 new daily users with a peak at 8,000 on December 5, the first day of the strike. During major demonstrations, 120,000 journeys were made by stranded Parisians.

VIDEO. Paris: hard to be a pedestrian, between scooters, works, and priorities not respected

"We registered more than 1000 new Parisian users per day, almost four times more than in November," said Driss Ibenmansour, general manager of Bird in France. The company also "doubled the daily usage rate" of its vehicles during the strike.

The most daring Parisians have even donned helmets and scooter gloves to dig into self-service electric two-wheelers. The Cityscoot service saw a 400% increase in the number of registrants over the month, compared to December 2018. And even a 330% increase between November 2019 and December 2019.

Home delivery

For a quick lunch, the teleworkers have asked the couriers who deliver the meal to you on the doorstep. Before the Christmas break, Deliveroo experienced a 20% increase in deliveries in small crowns and 25% in large crowns. Suburban restaurants were particularly requested at noon.

At Uber Eats, December was marked by a 25% increase in orders in Île-de-France on strike days and up to 40% on parade days. Nationally, orders increased 7% from November.

LOSERS

Supermarkets

Often located on the outskirts of built-up areas, and therefore less easily accessible during a strike due to traffic jams, hypermarkets could have been abandoned at the height of the social movement. The Casino group thus calculates a shortfall of around 80 million euros over the period concerned.

Conversely, downtown stores (Monoprix, Franprix, convenience stores Petit casino, Vival, Spar, etc.) have "shown their resilience," says the group. In particular, it has accelerated the automation of its stores, sometimes allowing customers to be welcomed seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

Catering and hospitality

"Gloomy" for the hotel industry, December was "catastrophic" for Parisian restaurants, chokes Frank Delvau. The co-president of the Union of hotel trades and industries in Île-de-France mentions "40%" of cutlery less than in December 2019, a month already marked by the demonstrations of yellow vests.

Logically, teleworking was expensive in the lunch window, when other employees decided to skip the midday meal and return home early at the end of the day. In the evening, the traditional end-of-year business meals were sometimes canceled. The establishments most affected remain those located near stations, which have sometimes recorded a “60%” drop in their clientele.

For the hotel industry, the results, although negative, are more mixed. With 20% fewer bookings than last year, December started very badly. Before experiencing an upturn during the holidays, with the arrival of many tourists at the last minute.

VIDEO. Tourists struggling in Paris: "we got ripped off by 75 euros"

Above all, the month of January seems to indicate a resumption of activity, driven in particular by the postponement of seminars and professional meetings canceled in December. A three-star establishment close to Saint-Lazare saw its occupancy rate drop by 17% in December. This month, the same rate marks "an increase of 10%", with "very good figures during the week".

Museums

The cultural outings of the weekend will wait. This is what many Ile-de-France residents, exhausted by their long weeks in transportation, seem to have said. While the City of Science and Industry, at La Villette, was experiencing a "record year" since its opening in 1986, management noted a drop of 25% on average over the month of December compared to 2018.

At the Musée Grévin, school groups and other works councils have made it possible to limit breakage. On national mobilization days, box office sales sometimes dropped to 60%. "There was simply never a queue at the entrance, blows Yves Delhommeau, the director of the wax museum. It’s worse than after the terrorist attacks in 2015. ”

Ancillary activities also suffered, with “- 80%” on the catering part. All the harder to cash in that management had to call in extras: stranded at home, its employees living in the suburbs sometimes chose to ask for last-minute holidays rather than trying to come to work at any cost.

The Manoir de Paris, a haunted house that attracts both the general public and team building sessions, suffered 10% cancellation of reservations and 10% postponements.

Theaters and performance halls

In the same way, the Seine Musicale, in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), told us at the beginning of December that they saw reservations melt by half from the start of the strikes. At the same time, Bertrand Thamin, president of the National Syndicate of Private Theater (SNDTP) and director of Montparnasse, calculated an average attendance drop "of 40%".

An ever more enviable fate than that of the Opera and the Comédie-Française. The only cultural institutions affected by the reform were forced to cancel their performances due to the strike, and were therefore doubly impacted.

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2020-01-25

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