The number of visitors to shopping centers in major cities has fallen drastically in recent weeks. This is evident from data from both non-food retailers and from the Parkmobile parking app. Entrepreneurs see their sales decline by tens of percentages and many parking spaces remain empty.
Since the second lockdown, Parkmobile has clearly seen a decline in the number of transactions. When the first stricter measures were introduced in mid-October, the number of transactions immediately fell by 12 percent compared to the previous weeks.
After last week’s extra measures, parking was 6.1 percent compared to a week earlier. Esther van der Meer, director of Parkmobile, has no doubts that the decline is due to the government’s contact-limiting measures.
“Since the closure of the catering industry, we see that there is less parking, especially in the evening,” says Van der Meer. “Especially between 8 pm and 10 pm, the number of transactions has fallen sharply, in some cases there are only 10 percent left.” The figures say a lot about the hustle and bustle in city centers, because this is where the most paid parking spaces are.
Shops have up to 70 percent fewer visitors
Industry association for non-food entrepreneurs INretail has also clearly noticed that the number of customers and turnover in shopping centers in inner cities are declining. Stores that sell clothing, shoes, sports equipment or home accessories keep a weekly record of how many customers they visit and how much they spend.
For example, in week 42, when lockdown measures were introduced again, sales in the thirteen largest city centers in the Netherlands were 39 percent lower than in the same week a year ago. Last week, when the lockdown was tightened, sales were even 46 percent lower. The number of visitors was 52 percent less.
The figures, which the entrepreneurs keep themselves, showed that the blow was the hardest in Amsterdam last week. There were 70 percent fewer people in the city center than in the same week last year, followed by Maastricht (-68 percent) and Arnhem (-63 percent).
The first lockdown in spring was a lot harder
With the COVID-19 outbreak in March and subsequent lockdown measures, Parkmobile’s parking revenues took an even harder blow. The number of transactions more than halved within two weeks. Since then, the number of parking sessions has never returned to pre-corona levels for a long time.
“We see in particular that the business driver, who parks more than ten times a month, for example, is a lot less active”, says Van der Meer. “This is mainly due to working from home. The question is also how this parking person will work in the future, more that they work from home more is most likely.”
Parking turns moved from Amsterdam to Zandvoort
It was clear that many Dutch people were holidaying in their own country last summer. The number of downloads of the app and the number of parking spaces along the entire coast in the summer months was exceptionally high, Van der Meer noted.
“From Den Helder to far into Zeeland, we saw that many more people used our app, while the number of transactions in the cities decreased. The transactions moved from, for example, Amsterdam to Zandvoort.”
What is also striking is that people still seem to avoid the parking garages. “We clearly see that parking in the street recovers faster than parking in garages. Perhaps this is due to fear of contamination, for example by grabbing an infected parking ticket or through closed small spaces where payment has to be made. Although this fear is not necessary,” because there are many garages where you can pay safely and contactlessly. “
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