Trade: Case manufacturers navigate out of the Corona crisis

The outbreak of the corona pandemic in spring 2020 came as a shock to the travel industry. Countless flights have been canceled and dust has collected on people’s suitcases.

The suitcase manufacturers quickly felt the effects: According to the Textile Shoes Leather Goods Trade Association (BTE), sales in the suitcase trade fell by more than 80 percent at the beginning of the pandemic. But now the industry hopes the worst is over.

“We are very confident that by summer at the latest there will be movement in the industry in the truest sense of the word,” says the spokeswoman for the Federal Association of the Shoe and Leather Goods Industry, Claudia Schulz, of the German Press Agency. People’s desire to travel is “currently already clearly noticeable”. As a result, the demand for luggage will increase again.

Industry expert Jürgen Dispan from the Stuttgart IMU Institute also expects the industry to see a clear plus again in 2022 “after years of the doldrums”. On the one hand, there is a need to catch up when it comes to travel, and on the other hand, the purchasing power of those who can afford suitcases and leather goods in the premium segment remains high.

However, the past two years have been a major challenge for case manufacturers. “When the pandemic-related travel restrictions began, sales in the suitcase segment dropped,” recalls Joachim Aisenbrey, Managing Director of the Breuninger store in Stuttgart.

BTE spokesman Axel Augustin also reports that there has been a drop in demand for luggage “of over 80 percent compared to 2019”. Although demand increased again last year, it is still well below the pre-crisis level.

But the industry crisis did not hit everyone equally. The Herford-based fashion company Bugatti reports that before the pandemic, suitcase sales at Bugatti accounted for around 30 percent of total annual sales. In the years 2020 and 2021, which were shaped by Corona, it was only eight percent. The company is now hoping for improvement in the current year, not least thanks to online trading.

A bit further on is the Cologne suitcase manufacturer Rimowa, which now belongs to the French luxury goods group LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Moet, Hennessy). The pandemic also presented the luxury brand with “unforeseen challenges”, says company boss Hugues Bonnet-Masimbert in retrospect. “Without the group’s solid financial backing, we would undoubtedly have been vulnerable to the severe crisis, especially in 2020.”

However, the company benefits from its international positioning. Things are already looking up again in a number of regions. In 2021, for example, business in North America and China was “well above the pre-pandemic level” again, reports Bonnett-Masimbert. A noticeable revival has been evident in Europe since the second half of the year.

“While the pandemic presented us as a travel brand with unforeseen challenges, it was interesting to see how our customers’ buying habits were changing,” says the Rimowa boss. Because international travel was at times hardly possible, many people instead took short vacations in their own country more often. “Consequently, hand-luggage-sized suitcases have become increasingly popular for short trips.” Rimowa also benefited from the expansion of the product range to include accessories and bags.

But even if the suitcase industry should soon leave the pandemic behind, the next challenge is already waiting, as industry expert Dispan emphasizes. The case manufacturers must now react quickly to the global megatrends of digitization and decarbonization, says the IMU expert. Consumers are also attaching more and more importance to sustainability when it comes to suitcases and travel bags.