The desire of Italians to return to sit in their favorite places has finally been satisfied. Reopening takes place with the awareness that the vaccination campaign, the white zones, and summer bring new life to this sector so battered by the Covid-19 emergency.
«We must be positive. We cannot think of an Italy without its restaurants, its bars, its trattorias, its extraordinary culinary offer, and its innate vocation for hospitality» says Salvatore Viola CEO of RepUP. «For this reason, we never stopped considering everything that was happening as temporary. Today we finally have data pointing to a positive trend. Of course, today’s numbers are not those of the pre-Covid period. Many venues that closed their doors during the lockdown have not reopened them so far (we are talking about around 60%) and many have changed management. But compared to last year, the scenario is undoubtedly positive».
The numbers that RepUP talks about are derived from merging information from the main online review platforms. According to this data, a venue is considered active if it has received at least one interaction on review platforms after April 26, 2021, the date of reopening for outdoor table service.
Surge in reviews
Besides helping us understand if a venue has resumed activity, another piece of information from platforms like Google and TripAdvisor concerns the number of comments, and in this case, the data is even more interesting.
In April 2021, the reviews left by customers were equal to those of April 2020, while in May 2021 they more than tripled (343.19%) compared to May 2020. Early data from June 2021 show that the increase is even more significant.
There is clearly a strong desire for sharing, making the experience of eating out even more “social.” It is also clear that the increase in reviews signals growth in the use of these platforms.
Probably, the “forced digitalization” developed during lockdown has pushed people who previously did not write or read reviews to start doing so, making the proper management of responses by businesses even more important.
«A volume of reviews like that of May 2021 had not been recorded since October last year, when venues were still open for dinner. – Explains Andrea Orchesi, President of RepUP – In the first week of reopening in June, the volume of reviews was four times that of the reopening week of April 26 with outdoor service».
«There are more reviews because now every outing is an event and as such people want to share it. But there are also more readings of those reviews because guests are much more careful not to choose the wrong venue; for this reason, responses to customer comments can bring great benefits if handled well, but can also cause significant image damage if done poorly». says Salvatore Viola.
Data on reopenings
But let’s see what the data on reopenings tell us. «We started from the number of venues that in 2019 (before Covid) were active on the review platforms and checked how many of them have actually resumed activity in recent months. We are talking about a sample of 208,000 venues. The striking fact is that, to date, more than half are not active”. Orchesi explains. “We then examined the differences between the various regions to understand how the reopening rate has varied. In general, if a restaurant has received reviews on TripAdvisor or Google, it means it has reopened and customers have started frequenting it again. These are important pieces of information because they are the result of data that RepUP has objectively collected and processed from multiple sources. These data tell us that in Italy the region that has reopened the most venues compared to 2019 is Liguria (48%), followed by Umbria (47%) and Tuscany (45%). At the bottom of the list, we find Sicily (30%), Sardinia (30%), and Calabria (27%)”.
Compared to 2020, the trend is definitely positive, considering that table service restarted about a month and a half ago. In general, compared to 2020, over 60% of Italian venues have reopened. There are also regions like Umbria, Lazio, and Liguria where opening percentages are already around 70%. At the bottom of the reopening list, we find Sicily (47%), Calabria (44%), and Sardinia (41%), regions that heavily bear the effects of a decimated foreign tourism.
Who is RepUP and Soplaya?
For restaurant guests, the quality of the food is a very important element to mention in reviews, and this is why RepUP has established a partnership with Soplaya, a startup that delivers raw materials of the highest quality directly from producers to restaurants within 48 hours of ordering. Thanks to a commercial agreement between the two companies, Soplaya’s customers will be able to benefit from a six-month subscription to RepUP, while the first 20 RepUP customers who request it will receive a voucher worth €50.
