2023-06-27 07:44:10
Barcelona It’s hot, the Camp Nou is already under construction and in its surroundings there is much less movement than usual. “You see, no one comes in,” says the father of the Abdul family at 11 o’clock on a weekday morning. “Since there are no Barça matches and the Camp Nou Tour is closed, our sales have decreased between 85% and 90%”, he reports with a face of resignation, but without losing his joy. He is the owner of the BCN Souvenirs Store on Carrer Riera Blanca, where he sells unofficial products related to Barça. In the premises next door there is another shop dedicated to the same thing, also empty, and a little further on, a mobile phone shop. He accompanies me and when I get there the son of the family appears, helping him with the business. “In this shop we used to sell souvenirs from Barcelona, but since there are almost no tourists at the Camp Nou, we have converted it and now we sell mobile phones,” explains the youngest of the Abdul family.
Meanwhile, his father, to prove that this is so, points to the illuminated sign at the entrance, which still brightly advertises the various products for tourists that could be found there until recently. “We have to change it,” he says. “With the few sales we had, we could not sustain the business during the year and a half or two that Barça will be playing away from the Camp Nou. In fact, we are now considering converting the other store as well, the one dedicated to Barça products “, add.
Then, a van that stops draws the father’s attention because it is driven by an acquaintance and the son takes over the speech. “We have asked the Barcelona City Council for a license to have a store of Barça products somewhere around the Olympic Stadium while they are playing there, but they have told us that they will not grant permits,” reports the family heir Abdul before quickly heading back to the mobile phone shop because he’s been turned away. Customers do come in there.
Fewer churros are also sold
The situation is not very promising at the legendary La Xurre Xurre, located on Avinguda Arístides Maillol, in front of access 15 of the Camp Nou, and which has been a meeting point in Les Corts for more than 40 years. El Jairo, the manager of the business, explains that, before the museum and the tour of the Camp Nou due to the start of the renovation works on the stadium, “sales on a normal day were down 50% compared to those on a match day”. Instead, now, the reduction “is around 70%, it is very noticeable, there are fewer tourists”.
But, from the offices of the club, they are not so pessimistic. A source from the Barcelona club tells ARA that the club’s temporary museum (the Barça Immersive Tour), which was inaugurated at the beginning of this month in the former Palau de Gel and which focuses on the ‘digital experience, is having between 5,000 and 7,000 daily visitors. Last summer the Barça museum (accompanied by tour per stadium), averaged 10,000. During this weekday morning at the end of June, dozens of tourists have breakfast at the Can Blai restaurant inside the Camp Nou facilities, and others, including some foreign base football teams, stroll along the entrances mixing with workers from Limak, the Turkish company that is carrying out the stadium works.
“The business of the shops in Les Corts is closely linked to catering on Barça match days and the traffic through the neighborhood for visitors to the club museum”, analyzes Adela Agelet, secretary of the Association of Residents of Les Corts. “At the meetings that are held with the neighborhood to deal with the effects of the works, the restaurateurs do not attend, but they agree with the neighbors that the most important thing is that the works go as quickly as possible”, he continues to explain.
The Dragons and the Workers of Limak
We are greeted more hopeful by Hernán, the manager of the El Rellotge bar on Carrer Riera Blanca, the usual meeting place for the entertainment group Els Dracs before the matches of the professional sections at the Palau Blaugrana. “On a Barça soccer match day, we have between 60 and 70 percent more turnover than a normal day,” he explains. “But I hope that, when the works are at full capacity, the lack of public can be compensated by the Limak workers and the carriers who will come to make the coffee, the beer or the sandwich,” he says. “Also, we are lucky that Els Dracs are coming here to preview the Palau. It’s a shame they won’t be back until September, because there are no games in the summer,” he laments.
On the sidewalk in front there is a kiosk, one of the fewer and fewer that survive in Barcelona. We ask Mario, his manager, if he is being affected by the drop in the number of tourists and Blaugrana fans who come to the Camp Nou facilities. “It doesn’t affect us much because the magazines and newspapers are mainly bought by people in the neighborhood. On match day, there are supporters who stop to buy tobacco or chewing gum, but that’s it,” he replies. Today, the foreign press has not yet reached him, but he usually does and, sometimes, this is a claim for tourists on their way to the Blaugrana museum. “In any case, the truth is that they are buying less and less,” admits Mario with a cigarette in his hand and sheltered from the sun in the semi-darkness of his kiosk.
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