There is no place for so many companies of motorcycle rental by the minute in Barcelona. The notice was given by the companies themselves when the distribution of licenses was made and time is showing it. The latest casualty is that of Gecco, which on January 31 ceased operations in the city after failing to gain a foothold among users.
The company was headed by Damien Harris, the Australian businessman who was commissioned more than a decade ago to deploy the yellow three-wheeled miniature convertible cars in the city, which look like toys but are loved by tourists.
His departure is not the first and industry sources predict that it will not be the last. Ten different brands resist and managers of some of those companies confess that “there is only a market for three or four, at most.”
The problem lies in the awarding of the 7,000 licenses just before the coronavirus changed everything. It was done through an innovative public tender that distributed the existing capacity among all the companies that presented themselves and met the requirements, instead of leaving the service in the hands of a number determined by the administration. The result overwhelmed the City Council, which found 21 shortlisted companies, which had just over 300 motorcycles per head, a figure that made the business unviable for all of them. Uncertainty and COVID made it fall by half and when the final award was made, in May, there were 12 companies left, a volume that allowed the licenses for each one to be raised to 580. In the sector, they continued to consider it insufficient and lamented the dizziness that the user has to be registered in a dozen different applications, each with its peculiarities.
The American Scoot was the first to get off the competition. In the summer he collected his motorcycles and electric bikes and left Barcelona, where he had arrived a couple of years earlier from San Francisco to lead his entry into Europe. The licenses it left vacant were distributed among the rest, thus bringing the number of motorcycles available to each of those that followed to 633.
On the other hand, the licenses that Gecco used until last Sunday will not be distributed among the rest of the operators immediately. They will be part of the expansion package with which the City Council wants to raise the licenses to 10,000 imminently.
–
