If last week was busy with IATA Slot, the Dubai Air Show and new aircraft orders, then this week is as flat as a pancake! Either nothing is happening, or everyone is taking a deserved break after the frantic activity of last week. In truth, it may just be this time of the year - pre-Thanksgiving, Winter ski season yet to start, and everyone saving their holidays for Xmas… we need the corporate traveller to return, any sightings anywhere?
STR’s latest 51-chart map shows a variety of recent national/regional trends as well as the general pace of the industry’s continued recovery. For the four weeks ending with 13 November 2021, more states closed the gap or exceeded their 2019 levels in revenue per available room (RevPAR) on a total-room-inventory (TRI) basis. Keystone markets, however, remain persistent holdouts toward further national recovery. Higher-than-expected average daily rate (ADR) along with strong weekend demand continue to underpin recovery.
The U.S. hotel industry saw its largest week-over-week demand gain since early October with 704,000 more room nights sold for the week ending 13 November 2021. Weekly demand has increased in 21 of the past 33 weeks and the most recent week’s gain was the 10th largest in that span. With the increase, occupancy advanced to 61.6%, up 1.9 percentage points from the previous week. Compared with 2019, occupancy indexed at 96, which was the highest level since early July. Average daily rate (ADR) also improved, up 1.3% week on week, to a level that was three percent higher than what it was in 2019.
Our latest white paper checks in with one of the pandemics major winners – the grocery sector. Following our Summer Grocery update, we dove into nationwide, regional, and brand-level visit data to understand what has changed and what has returned to pre-pandemic patterns. Year-over-two-year (Yo2Y) grocery visits have been consistently up nationwide in recent months, with weekly visits in October surpassing 2019 numbers by 5.2%, 7.1%, 7.2%, and 9.3% for the weeks of October 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th, respectively.
Last week, we dug into the rising flu levels in the South, particularly in Florida. While those trends continue into this week, Kinsa’s data also shows G.I. symptoms like nausea, diarrhea and vomiting are increasing in southern states. Illnesses that cause G.I. distress have been relatively low since the pandemic began — likely as a result of social distancing and masking. As people begin gathering for the holidays, we expect to see an uptick in illness, potentially including those that cause G.I. distress.
Notable Hit 1: (ROST:NASDAQ) On Thursday November 19 , 2021 Ross Stores, Inc. (ROST) posted better-than-expected revenues of $4.57bn beating the consensus estimate of $4.31bn or by 6% and in the same direction as Advan's forecasted sales. The revenue was up 22% YoY - Advan's foot traffic data captured an increase in foot traffic of +32% YoY at its stores for Q3 2021. Advan's footfall data has a correlation of 0.92 on a YoY basis with ROST's top-line revenue over the last 12 quarters.
Online grocery has become one of the most dynamic spaces in e-commerce, with third-party providers and grocers themselves experimenting with new models. But how do third-party services compare to sales directly from the grocer websites? In today’s Insight Flash, we take advantage of CE Receipt’s unique ability to capture the online sales of grocers such as Kroger to compare online growth trajectories, average items per basket, and average price per item.
Holiday retail is up 9% YoY so far according to the Earnest Research Spend Index (ERSI*), a measure of sales growth for 2,500+ U.S. consumer discretionary and staples businesses. Preliminary data reflects sales during the early holiday retail season starting Nov. 1 as defined by the National Retail Federation, to Nov. 10. Growth decelerated from October and remains slightly below the 2020’s holiday retail season levels. ERSI consumer spending growth peaked in early 2021 on a YoY basis as the data lapped Covid-19 related closures.
Investors around the world are fretting over recent spikes in inflation. The OECD reported that in the G20 countries alone, the pace of inflation jumped higher than the pre-pandemic pace to an average 4.6% rate through September of 2021. Worried about the implications for their portfolios, institutional investors are turning to commercial real estate as a hedge. Real estate can outperform inflation, but not always. Inflation can distort investment decisions. Rather than focusing on the fundamentals of a project, inflation can lead investors to underwrite above-average income growth.
Black Friday is rapidly approaching, and with it, questions of whether the holiday retail season will fulfill its unique 2021 potential. How could the season play out? We dove into the data to break it down. Black Friday, known traditionally for the mass outpouring of brick and mortar retail enthusiasm, was better defined in 2020 as ‘what can go wrong, will go wrong’. Following weeks of improvement in overall retail, rising COVID cases in November created severe limitations for even the top offline retailers.
Since the pandemic's onset, numerous TV and video streaming services have battled for consumers' attention, touting exclusive content and competitive pricing to drive new users to their app. We've seen this play out with apps like HBO Max, which hit a lifetime high for daily downloads with 225k just three days after its debut in May 2020. The biggest appeal to subscribe to HBO Max as of late is that its content is coming to the platform the same day that it's released in theaters.
Neobanks, also known as challenger banks, are financial technology companies that offer specialized software and features that traditional brick-and-mortar banks have not been able to match. These include a range of features such as removing monthly or overdraft fees, incorporating reward programs geared towards freelancers, adding the ability to receive paychecks early, layering in tools to help build credit, and even providing educational components.
With an estimated market size of 24 billion USD according to Forbes, the human resources technology market is bursting with opportunity. AI-based algorithms, together with increases in cloud computing have enabled major innovations for crucial HR functions, such as staffing, recruitment, applicant tracking, freelance hiring, and employee management more generally. We have looked at 50 of some of the biggest and fastest growing companies in this space. Below are the 5 fastest growing companies:
Bath & Body Works, Best Buy, and Dick’s Sporting Goods may operate in radically different retail categories, but these chains do have one thing in common – all three brands survived the pandemic with flying colors. We dove into the foot traffic trends to better understand where these category leaders are positioned going into 2022. Bath & Body Works made headlines over the summer when its parent company took the Bath & Body Works name and spun off Victoria’s Secret into an independent company.
Most people love a good comeback story—and when it comes to business, the most recent example of this is WeWork. WeWork went from a failed IPO worth almost nothing to a public company (via a merger with a SPAC) worth $9 billion in just two years. This would be a huge accomplishment for any company, but it’s even more significant when you consider how it came back during a pandemic.
‘Tis the time to give thanks in the USA and it appears sunny destinations both domestic and international are set to record growth on pre-pandemic US visitor numbers for the traditional exchange of turkey and well wishes. Travel analytics company ForwardKeys reveal the latest air ticketing data and trends placing Florida and El Salvador high on the travel agenda this Thanksgiving.
Total construction starts pushed 16% higher in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.01 trillion, according to Dodge Construction Network. Nonresidential building starts gained 29% and nonbuilding moved 52% higher in October, while residential starts lost 8%. The month’s large gains resulted from the start of three large projects: two massive manufacturing plants and an LNG export facility. Without these projects, total construction starts would have fallen 6% in October.
The new construction pipeline, despite the various supply and labor challenges present in the market, has continued to deliver units this year to an extent greater than in recent years. Through October, more than 300,000 conventional new units have been delivered, up from just over 260,000 new units in the same portion of both 2019 and 2020. While the preexisting upward trajectory in average construction time has continued and intensified, the average lease-up duration has declined for the first time in more than four years.
The US borders finally opened on November 8. Did that result in a material influx of tourists that will help increase hotel and retail traffic? Not yet... Let's review 5 airports that showcase both domestic and international travel: LAX and ORD (Chicago O'Hare) that capture international visitors from the Asia-Pacific region, and JFK and EWR (Newark) that capture traffic from Europe; plus LGA (LaGuardia) which has mostly domestic traffic for comparison.
When many Americans sheltered in their homes early in the coronavirus pandemic, meal delivery sales reached new heights. Our data reveals that in October 2021, sales for meal delivery services grew 15 percent year-over-year, collectively. The ongoing pandemic may also be driving more Americans to make their first meal delivery purchase. In October 2021, 50 percent of U.S. consumers had ever ordered from one of the services in our analysis, up from 44 percent a year ago.
