A comedy show conducted at a mall in Thane recently witnessed only six people in attendance. This is not fully unexpected given that although Mumbai and its neighbouring regions were open in some form, the recent surge of coronavirus cases has led the state and civic administrations to implement restrictions on public gatherings. It is learnt that many malls have cancelled or postponed large scale events owing to the COVID-19 situation right now.
Rajneesh Mahajan, CEO of Inorbit Malls said, “Post lockdown, we had seen a steady growth in footfall and consumption week over week. Business recovered substantially in December 2020 and January 2021. But since the last week of February, we have seen that there is no growth in weekly footfall. In the past few days, there has even been a slight drop in footfall which could be due to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases."
In addition to malls, other public places such as the recently opened Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) at Fort, is seeing a rapid fall in the average number of visitors per day.
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Director-General of CSMVS, Sabyasachi Mukherji said that while up to 300 people visited the museum daily when it opened in February 2021, footfall has fallen to 180 to 240 people per day since the beginning of March. The number now stands at 90 to 100 per day, including on weekends, Mukherji said. He added that this has adversely impacted the revenues generated by CSMVS.
Needless to say, Mukherji believes that the reduction in visitors is most likely due to the guidelines in place that allow only 20 visitors in a gallery at any given time while also implementing staggered entry timings, strict following of circulation paths, among other rules.
Meanwhile, multiplex chains say that the reduction in crowds could be blamed on the lack of new movie releases during the lockdown. Several new films were released online via streaming platforms in 2020 which was considered a big shift from the pre-pandemic times. However, new films are now releasing in multiplexes and theatres with many more in the pipeline.
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CEO of Infiniti Mall, Mukesh Kumar said, “With blockbuster releases coming up, we are optimistic that footfall would increase and theatres would perform better.”
Despite the lack of major crowds at these once-popular destinations, the city’s Byculla Zoo is reportedly witnessing steady visitors since it was reopened on the 15th of February.
“On weekdays there are around 2,000 people who visit while on Sundays, the number of visitors touch 10,000 as well,” said Dr Sanjay Tripathi who is the director at the zoo.
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