A deserted terrace in the rain, May 30, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Sami KARAALI)
Abandoned terraces, deserted glaciers… the frequent rains of recent months have had a negative impact on the hotel, restaurant and tourism sectors. From the South of France to the Paris region, managers are patient.
A few couples of tourists huddle together on the terrace of Maison Maison, a small café located on the banks of the Seine in Paris, sheltered under large parasols from the downpours that have been falling on the capital for weeks.
“And there, you see twice as many people as usual at the same time,” sighs Hocine Hanon, bartender at the establishment.
“For us, the weather is the main factor in attendance,” he adds. Located below the Pont Neuf, the small café was at least able to count on the few sunny weekends in May to compensate for the rainy days, after having had to close part of April: swollen by the rains, the Seine experienced several overflows.
“It’s time for the good weather to return, because obviously, over time, it’s weighing down the accounts a bit,” whispers the bartender.
In May, in France, precipitation was significantly higher than normal, according to Météo-France, which will soon publish its complete monthly report.
“It’s normal that in spring we experience unstable climatic situations, but what is abnormal is the recurrence,” Christelle Robert, forecaster at the public weather organization, explains to AFP: “it’s about of a blocking situation, with high pressures which remain positioned in the same place (…), higher than usual, and altitude depressions which cause particularly unstable weather”.
– “Feel down in the dumps” –
“Bad weather has a direct consequence on attendance” at hotel establishments, says Ophélie Rota, of the Union of Hotel Trades and Industries (Umih), to AFP. “Many of our members have noticed a drop in activity, in large cities but also on the coast.”
A deserted terrace in the rain, May 30, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Sami KARAALI)
“Like all coastal regions, we depend enormously on the sun for our activity,” agrees Jacques Mestre, restaurant owner in La Grande-Motte and representative of Umih in Hérault.
“At the moment I’m doing 10, 12 seats per service compared to 50 normally, and we had to close one or two days a week due to bad weather,” explains the restaurateur. “We are hesitant to hire. We feel it directly in the turnover, and the employees too.”
“But what will happen if it continues like this in June?”, he asks, “and then, ‘we must not be naive, it will never recover.’
Also hard hit are ice cream parlors and businesses most dependent on sunshine and tourist flows, which generate most of their turnover in spring and summer.
“At this time, normally, we would sell 150 to 200 cones,” confides Élodie Ducoup, a Parisian ice cream maker, “while here we are going to sell around twenty, around thirty. It’s still ten times less!”
Tourists in the rain in Paris, May 31, 2024 (AFP/Ludovic MARIN)
How can we quantify this loss of earnings for bosses? At the microphone of BFMTV, Thierry Véron spoke on Thursday of a “10% drop in turnover compared to last year” in May.
A plausible estimate for Pascal Mousset, president of the Groupement des Hôtelleries et Restaurations (GHR) of Paris Ile-de-France, who even mentions “15 to 30% drop in turnover for businesses dependent on their terraces”.
However, “traders were counting on the month of May to recover after a very difficult winter, marked by the rise in energy prices and the crisis in purchasing power”, according to him.
“We are trying to cheer them up with the prospect of the Olympic Games,” concludes this professional restaurateur. “But our morale is in our socks.”
© 2024 AFP
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