Cycling Leads the EU’s COVID Recovery – jobs and investments are growing

One of the cycling industries’ most powerful tools during the coronavirus pandemic has been CIE’s series of Business Impact Surveys, showing the impact and the changes in the sector as the pandemic has evolved.

The third edition of the survey now confirms that what we see on the streets of Europe is passing straight though to jobs and investments in the industry.  54% of the companies surveyed now have seen their number of staff increase to levels higher than September 2019. 67% of companies have also returned to marketing spending higher than last year. That is not surprising because 83% of the respondents indicated  that they had higher revenues when compared to twelve months earlier. All this data allows policy-makers and investors to see that cycling leads the COVID recovery and that there is a significant potential for growth. Few, if any business sectors are able to show this trend in Europe, and none of the others makes the same contribution to a greener Europe as envisaged in the EU Green Deal.

CIE, our partners and companies in our Market Impact and Intelligence Expert Group have provided coordinated approach to coronavirus recovery and impact assessment to be able to come up with key figures to guide the sector.

By providing expertise and data on the Industry as a whole and on sector specific issues, CIE  confirms that the cycling sector is worth investing policy support  and funding by European institutions and national governments as well as the  private sector. In July 2020, CIE has also demonstrated its commitment to finding market Intelligence in  the EU-funded CityChangerCargoBike project by releasing the key results of the first European Cargo Bike Industry Survey. All in all, the survey participants have shown 60% growth from 2018 to 2019 and they reported that they were expecting similar growth in 2020 across Europe. While this anonymised sample of cargo bike brands cannot account for the total size of the European cargo bike market, it clearly indicates its trends and impressive growth.

The beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic has marked a crucial point for the cycling Industry. All in all, Europe has spent 1 billion euros on cycling infrastructure and more than 2,300 km of new bike lanes have been built since the pandemic began in March 2020. The unprecedented investment in cycling around Europe – from Bucharest to Brussels – can only prove that cycling has established itself as a strong means to fight the virus and air pollution. Hence, CIE’s work ensures that we really understand the current state of the Industry and the major issues of the moment.

CIE thanks all the members of the Market Impact and Intelligence Expert Group, without whom this work would have not been possible. CIE runs the Expert Group to gather evidence and produce Intelligence that will allow accurate market forecasting, stronger promotion of the Industry, and better information for the Industry as well as NGOs, policy-makers and investors. All CIE members and other companies are invited to be part of this important initiative.

Join us by clicking here.

The study of the Business Impact Surveys was carried out by CIE’s member Sports Marketing Surveys on behalf of the association.