The dark side of online restaurant reservation is highlighted by the Lunchgate platform. The latter manages the agendas of around 1,200 brands in Switzerland. For the first time, she published figures on the evolution of “no-shows” (reservations not honored) in recent years, we read Monday in the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”.
At the Swiss level, 2.4% of people who reserved a table via the Internet did not appear in 2024, against 1.4% in 2019. In the Cantons of Geneva, Valais and Ticino, this proportion reaches 4%. This figure may seem trivial, but the platform manages tens of millions of requests per year. In the end, hundreds of thousands of customers put a rabbit to Swiss restaurateurs, says Yves Lantour de lunchgate. The latter believes that the cities prized by foreign tourists are more affected. These visitors are, according to him, more “flexible” and perceive “reservations as less restrictive”.
Internet reservations, which increased during the COVID period, certainly allow establishments to better anticipate demand, but, reverse of the medal: fewer people come spontaneously on site and it is therefore more difficult to compensate for losses related to withdrawals, notes a Zurich restaurateur.
To limit unpleasant surprises, the latter required a credit card number during online reservations and threatened to tax 50 francs in the event of non-honored booking (see below). This threat seems to have worked since the bistro saw the disappointments decrease and had to sanction only one customer. The restaurant owner also tries to attract more passers -by by offering a glass of prosecco to those who stop at his home to eat impromptu.
