Due to reopening, along with an assist from the summer half-term holiday (31 May-4 June), U.K. hotel occupancy came in at 43.1% in May 2021. That was up from May 2020 (23.0%) but substantially below May 2019 (78.9%). Because of the pandemic impact on 2020 data, STR is using 2019 as the recovery benchmark. Average daily rate (ADR) was even further behind the pace at GBP67.33, up from GBP58.69 in May 2020 but down from GBP93.65 in May 2019. However, both the occupancy and ADR levels from May 2021 were the highest in the U.K. since September 2020.
Casinos took a major hit during the pandemic as indoor recreational activities temporarily shut down to halt the spread of the virus. Now, with most restrictions lifted, the industry is coming back to life – but the overall pace of recovery for US public gaming companies has been choppier than for other sectors. We dove into national and regional foot traffic trends for Boyd Gaming, Bally’s Corporation, Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts, Red Rock Resorts, Penn National Gaming, and Wynn Resorts to see how this sector is performing through the reopening.
Money transfer and payment apps are seeing an unprecedented spike in adoption and usage. While these initial surges aligned with retail business closures and statewide stay-at-home orders, the gradual proliferation of contactless payment apps reflects consumers' mounting desire for both convenience and safety in how they manage their financial lives. Today, we'll review how PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App pivoted their digital creative and spending strategies to account for shifting trends in consumer spending habits throughout the pandemic and our fundamental understanding of money.
In some ways, the U.S. agriculture and farming sector is thriving. Agricultural export values are setting new records: they reached [**$59 billion**](https://www.feednavigator.com/Article/2021/07/01/Strong-possibility-of-record-breaking-year-for-US-agriculture-products-such-as-beef-corn-and-sorghum) over the first four months of 2021. With increased foreign demand for products like corn, soybean, sorghum, wheat and animal products, farmers have been able to sell their products at competitive prices abroad. But the industry does face significant challenges—chiefly labor shortages and drought.
We all remember the buzz of back-to-school season as kids: excitement about a new teacher or classroom, reunions with friends and planning that special outfit for the first day. This year, many employees will experience something similar when they return to the office after working remotely during the pandemic. To learn how workers feel about the coming transition, we surveyed 450 employees who have been working from home due to COVID-19.
Chicago Area and East Coast States Remain More Exposed to Pandemic’s Impact During Second Quarter of 2021; Most Vulnerable Areas Are More Scattered Around Nation Than in Prior Quarter; Western States Continue to Have Most Favorable Market Conditions. ATTOM, curator of the nation’s premier property database, today released its second-quarter 2021 Coronavirus Report spotlighting county-level housing markets around the United States
On Monday, July 19, 2021, Ice Cream brand Ben & Jerry’s announced that it will cease selling ice cream in West Bank. The announcement was followed by widespread condemnation from the Jewish community worldwide, and a stern warning from Israel’s PM to Unilever, B&J’s parent company, that there would be legal and other consequences. But what about the actual customers? How have they reacted? Looking at the recent foot traffic across all 380 Ben & Jerry’s stores that Advan Research covers, there does not seem to be a material effect on customer visits.
I didn’t meet my husband the ‘old fashioned way,’ in a bar. Nope. We met on Tinder. While some may be surprised I found love on a dating app, it’s definitely not the exception to the norm anymore. The online dating industry has grown 23% in 2021 alone. People worldwide are hoping to connect with that special someone and are looking to technology to give them a hand. Case in point: One billion people visited dating and relationship websites last month.
Grocery delivery sales skyrocketed early in the pandemic, as shelter-in-place orders went into effect and many consumers avoided going into brick-and-mortar grocery stores. Between March 2020 and April 2020, total sales among a select set of grocery delivery competitors–Instacart, Walmart Grocery, Shipt, Peapod, and FreshDirect–grew 62 percent. While demand for grocery delivery still exceeds pre-pandemic levels, sales have been gradually declining in 2021.
In the first half of 2021 there was an unprecedented surge in demand for mental health and fitness services. Tracking the salaries for health coaches over time, we see not only a recovery from the pandemic, but also an extremely rapid spike in 2021. But how are these new demands changing the wellness economy? This rising demand for wellness services has resulted in large salary increases for specific roles. In the figure below, we see that coaches, counselors, and support workers have the highest growth in salaries.
In our latest whitepaper, we analyzed retail giants, their pandemic performance, and their year so far. We looked at the sector leaders and dove into different superstore categories to explore the latest trends, see where competition was heating up, and understand whose dominance remains unchallenged. Costco, Target, and Walmart are three of retail’s most important and impressive players. And while Walmart is by far the biggest of the three—both in terms of numbers of stores and monthly visits—it is also facing the stiffest increase in competition.
In a previous article we discussed the UEFA Euro 2021 impact on host markets in Europe, now we focus on how 2021 Copa América affected Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia during the later rounds of the tournament. Copa América, originally scheduled to take place last year in Argentina and Colombia, was held from 13 June through 10 July 2021. During the quarterfinal between Uruguay and Colombia on 3 July, Brasilia registered its second highest occupancy level (53.8 %) of 2021. Hotel occupancy the day before and after the match was just 36%.
There's nothing quite like an international football tournament and the wave of excitement that takes over cities as fans flock to the stadiums of the host nations. During UEFA Euro 2020, that party atmosphere was for the first time extend to 12 different host markets, albeit with some limitations due to the pandemic. Regardless, Euro 2020 meant an influx of visitors and a subsequent impact on hotel performance, especially for smaller markets.
Like most of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital adoption across industries. The financial service industry in Canada was no exception. According to Similarweb data, web traffic to the Banking, Credit, and Lending category within the country increased 20% in 2020. In this article, we’ll use our Research Intelligence solution to hone in on the digital trends impacting the performance of top Canadian banks (known as the “Big 5”), and share lessons learned from the winners.
As the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession continues, annual gains in employment that had spiked in May are beginning to temper toward more normal levels. The U.S. gained 6.3 million jobs in the year-ending June, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This pace is down from the 8.6 million jobs gained in the year-ending May, and below the 10 million jobs added in April.
In this Placer Bytes, we dive into a retailer seemingly at the height of its powers and another that may be on the path to a serious rebound. For a digitally native company ahead of an expected IPO, plans to potentially open hundreds of stores are far from a given. Yet, Warby Parker has become one of the prime examples of the importance and value of owned retail. The eyewear brand has seen visits rebound very strongly during the recovery with visits up 75.6% and 48.1% in May and June of 2021 compared to the equivalent months in 2019.
It didn’t take long for TikTok to transform from a fledgling social media platform with questionable legal presence in the U.S. into one of the most popular apps around. TikTok was the most downloaded app of its kind last year, with more than 82 million downloads, and it continues to gain traction from consumers and advertisers every day. As the social media app matures, it has quickly become a platform used to drive fashion trends among the Gen Z audience.
With news that Glossier recently closed a Series E round of $80M (led by Lone Pine Capital) now bringing the DTC company’s valuation to $1.2 billion, we looked at our spend data to see how the beauty brand has fared throughout the pandemic and beyond. Glossier YoY sales peaked in mid-May growing 143%, coinciding with stay-at-home orders that left many shoppers with online marketplaces as the only place to checkout. As COVID cases continued to grow, Glossier’s sales declined, hitting negative growth by late summer 2020
Total construction starts lost 7% in June, slipping to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $863.6 billion, according to Dodge Data & Analytics. All three major sectors (residential, nonresidential building, and nonbuilding) pulled back during the month. Single family housing starts are feeling the detrimental effects of rising materials prices. Large projects that broke ground in May were absent in June for nonresidential building and nonbuilding starts, resulting in declines.
U.S. single-family rent growth increased 6.6% in May 2021, the fastest year-over-year increase since at least January 2005, according to the CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI). The May 2021 increase was nearly four times the May 2020 increase. The index measures rent changes among single-family rental homes, including condominiums, using a repeat-rent analysis to measure the same rental properties over time.
