Business opening: mixed image in Vorarlberg – Dornbirn

After nearly seven weeks of Corona closing, today shopping centers, hairdressers and all stores with more than 400 square meters of retail space have reopened.

In Vorarlberg, it was possible to do relatively relaxed shopping on Saturday mornings: the parking lots were good, but not completely full, the stores themselves offered a different image.

Only briefly, such as around Vorarlberg’s second largest shopping center, the Zimbapark near Bludenz, there were smaller traffic jams. For the exhibition park in Dornbirn, the country’s largest shopping mall, Managing Director Burkhard Dünser compared the flow of visitors “to a rather weak Saturday.”

The frequency of all catering trade is still closed, but especially the lack of consumers in neighboring Switzerland. If this were to cross the border, one could speak of a normal Saturday.

Even in front of the large furniture stores in Vorarlberg, the parking situation presented a below-average picture.

The hairdressing salons were full, but with the restriction that usually only every second chair is occupied – in any case, it was practically impossible to spontaneously get an appointment, as a Bludenzer barber explained. The biggest rush in shopping malls was in the electricity markets. Dünser: “The longest lines were already at 9 a.m. against the media market, but also before Nespresso.” Fashion chain stores were heavily frequented the first day after the block was lifted.

Monitoring of the minimum area per person and, therefore, access control was handled differently. While larger stores in particular had shopping carts or personal security personnel, the perfumery chain Douglas issued a limited number of shopping baskets and the Deichmann shoe chain, which were then available to the next customer after leaving .

The company provided consumers with a good certificate of compliance with protective measures. “It adheres to the distance control, it works perfectly. We issue masks, but we will be able to stop using them soon, because most of them already come with their own masks,” reports the head of Messepark.

Loss of sales due to the mandatory crown related breakdown is unrecoverable for most dealers and stores. Financially, it is “very scarce” for many commercial companies, according to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce.

There will also be more frequency for business with the reopening of gastronomy in mid-May and the hotel industry in late May. It is not clear when foreign tourists can return to Austria.

You still have to buy with a mask and the proper distance. The number of customers is limited: in all stores and malls there can only be one person for every 10 square meters.

There is an innovation for employees, who can now use face visors as an alternative to the mask.