Top restaurant searches on Google in France

Simon D

3 years ago

What would French culture be without a good meal in a restaurant? Organizing a lunch for a business meal or celebrating a family event at a dinner are part of our habits. However, since the beginning of the pandemic, restaurant owners have had to close their doors on several occasions. The French have therefore changed their habits to continue to treat themselves and enjoy a delicious cooked menu from time to time.

Fortunately, Google is there to help us understand and analyze these changes. Indeed, food lovers are also Internet users who ask the Internet to answer their questions. Focus on restaurant searches on Google, which tell us a lot about French people’s desires and food needs in 2021.

A peak in requests for deliveries and takeaways

Searches with terms related to home delivery and takeout have increased significantly in 2020 and 2021. The research of players in this new market such as Uber Eats or Deliveroo has also progressed.

The terms “delivery” and “takeaway” have seen record increases on Google. For example, “takeaway around me” has grown by 350% or “takeaway restaurant nearby” by 850% in the last 12 months.

The website techtribune has published the Google searches and confirms that “search interest in takeaways and deliveries is significantly higher than for restaurants to dine in”.

Restaurant clicks were down 30% in the last quarter of 2020.
Searches for home delivery restaurants increased by 26%.
The takeaway and delivery business grew by +49%.
There are 74% more clicks for takeaway and delivery.
79% of searches for non-seated meals are done on mobile.

The restaurant, the eternal favourite leisure activity of the French

If we type the term “restaurant” into Google trends, we can see that the curve of interest in this search correlates with the different phases related to covid. For example, the curve drops sharply from the beginning of November, the date of the second containment, and stagnates until the week of May 9, 2021, when the French began to inquire about the reopening of the terraces on May 19.

The French are not forgetting about restaurants, and as soon as the situation allows, they make reservations in their favourite establishment.

Many people have been looking for an “open restaurant”. Between lockdowns and curfews, restaurant owners have not always been able to stay open, but Internet users still want to be able to have lunch or dinner with their families outside.

Google has been instrumental in answering the question of location. People want to find a restaurant near where they are by typing the phrase “restaurant nearby”. This expression has followed the dates of the different phases of restrictions. The latest, the reopening of the terraces on May 19, shows the beginning of the increase in research.