Zoé Pallier 8:03 p.m., April 18, 2022
The French are very numerous to have taken advantage of the Easter weekend.
Bison Futé classified this Monday as orange throughout France.
If it is too early to know all the attendance figures, the professionals are already rubbing their hands, especially on the coast.
Some of them, on the other hand, had to deal with a lack of staff in the face of a record number of customers.
The sun was out for this Easter weekend.
The French were very numerous to take advantage of it.
There are also people on the way back.
Bison Futé classified this Monday as orange throughout France.
If it is still too early to know all the attendance figures, professionals are already rubbing their hands, especially on the coast.
Dating similar to 2019
Professionals have been deprived for two years of this crucial weekend to get the season off to a good start.
Forced to close because of the Covid, two restaurateurs, one in La Baule, the second in Arcachon, were sold out all weekend.
"It's the last day but we're still full this evening. A lot of people come very early and hit the road afterwards. We had a lot of people who come with their families, people from Rennes but also people from Nantes. They moved for the weekend to La Baule", confides one of them at the microphone of Europe 1. "Over the weekend, we are on dating which is similar to 2019", explains the other.
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Lots of tourists but not enough staff
The number of tourists is therefore back to its 2019 level. It even exceeds it in some seaside resorts.
In Trouville, for example, we are not far from the records for an Easter weekend, all years combined, rejoices the boss of three companies, in particular the ferry that connects Trouville to Deauville and a rental store. bicycles.
“All the conditions were met to have people this weekend: the sun, three days and then the two years we had recently. So people necessarily need to escape from their homes”, affirms-t -il on Europe 1. And then, this weekend was also marked by the return of foreign tourists to Paris, especially Europeans, with occupancy rates ranging from 80 to 100% in hotels.
This is five times more than last year at the same period.
But to cope with a busy weekend like this, you need arms, whether in trade, hotels or restaurants.
There were also crowds in the Vosges, but the task was not easy without the right staff, as explained by Xavier Grimont, who represents the department's hoteliers.
“We have reviewed the salary scale but that is not enough”
"The problem is that we still can't find staff," he laments on Europe 1. "So we take extras. We work with extras on weekends. The problem is that we don't have time to train them and therefore the quality of the service suffers. And the customers, inevitably, are not happy if the service is not fast. The meal time is a little longer and we are obliged to restrict reception capacities. They do not understand that there are empty tables when they are in demand. We are obliged to take the maneuver that we find and we call the people who are willing to work in our profession. We have reviewed the salary scale and working conditions", he underlines, but "that is not enough yet".