The run on Monday was quite long, 33,5km, and beyond the legs the whole body felt really tired. Therefore, the replacement of the 10k active recovery run yesterday with an equally long time on the bench while a skilled masseur with healing hands would give the leg muscles a good drill didn’t require to think twice. Off we were at 4pm and on to the phone to make an appointment for later in the evening. After ten or so calls, one thing was sure, the massage studios cannot complain, there’s definitely no economic downturn there. Although some take appointments until 9pm, there was absolutely no opening anywhere, neither a slot from anyone having cancelled earlier today.
Somehow it appears, something is off here, supply and demand are far from an equilibrium (assuming that no slot at ten different service providers equals many more callers having no short term possibility to get served). Pricing for massages in the Helsinki metropolitan region is on average something like this:
- 30mins: EUR27
- 45mins: EUR33
- 60mins: EUR39
I would claim - and please don’t stone me to death, I’d prefer hot stones on my back, though - that those prices are too low. With higher prices some would not go to get a massage anymore, but since there are so many more wanting to right now, the capacity would be still fully utilized and the masseur’s would earn more. A quick comparison with Germany (Hamburg), the UK (Mancherster) and Sweden (Stockholm) reveals that the price level is 10% - 20% higher there. I wonder if there’s an equal shortage of supply.
The local paper wrote today, that in order to help fighting against the economic downturn, those who can should accelerate their consumption in homegrown food, goods and local services. We consumers are doing a good job with the latter when comes to massages, if the providers would jack up their prices, we could do an even better one - bizarre, isn’t it?
Tags: massage
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