Retailers in Dublin city are gearing up for some 25 million visits between now and Christmas once the festive lights are officially switched on, on November 13th.
While business representatives remain largely positive about trade and are rolling out the welcome mat, it is clear that some continue to suffer as a result of ongoing congestion and public transport restrictions due to the Luas works.
"Footfall has continued to rise this year despite a number of challenges. It's up a modest amount – just over 1 per cent so far – but at least it's moving in the right direction," said Richard Guiney, chief executive of DublinTown, the city's business improvement initiative.
“Compared to the challenges that we faced in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 when, basically, the economy was bombing, what we have faced in the last year or so has been modest, to be honest.”
Positive about Luas
Mr Guiney said the organisation had tracked consumer attitudes to the Luas works, which, he said, were “quite modest” up to the summer.
“Between 3 and 7 per cent of people were saying they were cognisant of the Luas works or that it was an issue for them. That’s gone up quite considerably as the works intensified. They are still very enthusiastic about the project – they can’t wait for it –but they are looking forward to it being finished.”
“They are massively enthusiastic about the project itself. Consistently over a number of surveys, we’ve got 44 per cent of people saying there are more likely to come into the city when the Luas is up and running, compared with 3 per cent who say they are less likely to come into the city. So I think in overall terms, the gain will be worth the pain that we’re going through at the moment.”
Elizabeth Beattie, manager of Health Matters on Grafton Street for the past 12 years, said her business had definitely suffered as a result of the Luas works, estimating a drop of about 10 per cent in the last year.
“There used to be a bus stop on Suffolk Street and Nassau Street and now the nearest one is probably Dame Street. People can’t get in and out. You can see it from the shop. There used to be hundreds of people passing.”
Ms Beattie said the cost of parking nearby was also a deterrent. Even Thursday late-night shopping had dropped off. “The Luas works are going on even at night,” she said.
Mr Guiney does welcome the fact that the National Transport Authority has worked with DublinTown and businesses to minimise disruption caused by the works. In particular, he welcomes that the works will be suspended from so-called Black Friday – the busiest pre-Christmas sales day of the year – until January 4th.
“They have worked with us throughout this project,” he said. “Most works will be suspended from November 24th or 25th and will resume on the 4th of January. That’s a huge relief and we were very pleased to be able to negotiate that with the NTA.”
Transport strikes
Businesses also noticed the impact of the recent bus and Luas strikes on their footfall, he said. “During the Luas strikes, the city centre lost about half the people who use that mode of transport on the days of the strike.”
They lost about a third of bus passengers. “Buses carry roughly 40 per cent of the people who come into town to spend money, so we were losing roughly 20 per cent of sales on those days. The footfall was clearly impacted.
“I think a number of businesses would have realised how important the bus is to their overall sales, because retailers you wouldn’t expect to have a strong bus base actually noticed that it was impacting. We were very pleased when that got resolved.”
The city centre is still popular with younger people up to the age of 34, who come to socialise, eat and drink. It had started to lose out on the over 55s who were shopping out of town. “They were migrating out. But we are picking up again with those,” he said.
Wrong directions
Changes to traffic flows in the city may have confused older people used to their routes, he suggests. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Google Maps was guiding people through the bus gate on College Green and also up one way streets.
DublinTown will launch an app later this month marking all hotels and car parks in the city centre to help people plotting a route for their shopping trips.
Welcoming the last-minute halt to the Garda strike planned for Friday, Mr Guiney said businesses had plans to deal with it.
“There would have been a Garda presence, but it wouldn’t have been as comprehensive as it would have been in the normal course of events.”
His members, however, had been “very conscious” of the proposed strike and were “taking precautions”.
GARDA STRIKE THREAT
City centre jeweller
Jeweller Martin Gear, who has a premises on Mary Street on the north of the Liffey, said he had considered closing his shop on Friday due to the planned Garda strike.
“I suppose you’d be somewhat fearful of the potential threat to business. I don’t see how you could effectively operate,” he said.
“I came up with my own plan,” he adds. This included locking all his high-end merchandise in a time-locked safe which could not be accessed even by him.
He also brought concerns to the insurance companies. On the eve of the planned strike, his own insurer sent out a “generic” email to all the jewellers which included “word-for-word what I had sent them”.
“I was ahead of them,” he said.
He said he and other jewellers share information, but gardaí had declined a suggestion some years ago to set up an email alert system to flag stolen jewellery. “It would protect the buyers, the sellers and the public. If violence had been used in a particular robbery, it would be red-flagged.”
Security measures
Mr Gear, who has worked in the jewellery business since he was a child, said: “I have a smoke machine here that is activated by a panic button – probably overkill when it comes to security. I have an electronic steel shutter that I can roll down with a button in my pocket. I have an electronic door I can lock with a button.”
“If the strike had gone nuclear on a long-term basis, I had another contingency plan which was to set up a . . . rapid-response team of shopkeepers and workers in the area.”
He said the shopping area in which he was based was “well policed and safe”.
“Since the guards got the increase in emergency funding around January, I’ve seen a massive increase in policing. I’ve never seen so many guards in the city and they have an overtime budget as well. Unfortunately, it took the atrocities for the Government to wake up and do this.”