The Hotel, Coffee & Restaurant sector has 422,935 active establishments (head offices and secondary establishments) . This represents an increase of more than 4% in the head office population between 2020 and 2021.

As of October 31, 2021, there were 2,668 insolvencies in the sector over a rolling 12-month period, representing a 43.4% decrease compared to the previous period. These insolvencies threatened 7,010 jobs.

2020-2021: an unprecedented tourism crash

In a joint report on the impact of the Covid crisis, released on June 30, 2021, the United Nations and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimate global losses to tourism at more than $2.4 trillion in 2020. The report projects a further decline of 1.8 trillion in 2021, compared to 2019. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to OECD figures, France ranked 1st among tourist destinations, with 90 million international visitors, 78% of whom were European, and 3rd in terms of revenue generated, behind the United States and Spain.

For the Hotel and Restaurant industry, which is highly dependent on cultural, leisure and business tourism, the health crisis of 2020-2021 was an unprecedented shock. In France, the number of international visitors has decreased by 73.5% between 2019 and 2020, and will be half as many in 2021 with 40-45 million visitors. More than 60 billion euros of revenue have evaporated, a third of the turnover achieved in 2019.

Is employment a barrier to recovery in the hotel and restaurant industry?

The hotel and restaurant industry is structurally short of employees (60,000 to 80,000 vacancies). They suffer from a lack of attractiveness, mainly due to difficult working conditions (arduousness, working hours, overtime, etc.), as well as low salaries (industry minimum below the minimum wage). With the closures and short-time working during the Covid period, the sector lost 237,000 employees between February 2020 and February 2021, according to the Ministry of Labor, which puts many establishments in difficulty in the face of the recovery.