The pandemic has been tough for department stores. Brands that were already struggling to adapt to the role of e-commerce and changing consumer preferences were pushed over the edge, while other department stores were forced to shed stores to stay in the game. Neiman Marcus, JCPenney, and Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy, joining their peers Sears and Barney’s New York that had filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Macy’s and Nordstrom announced plans to permanently shutter several locations in an attempt to optimize their store fleet.
Nationally, cases continue to crawl northward from the outbreak’s epicenter in the south. New daily cases are again surging, currently averaging more than 100,000 new cases per day (similar to levels we saw last fall and winter). Hospitalizations approach the levels seen during the beginning of the pandemic, with an average of about 53,000 people currently hospitalized. For context, hospitalizations during the first wave peaked around 58,000.
Abersoch has become the most popular holiday town in North Wales, with tourism rising 72% above pre-pandemic levels as businesses in the region reap the benefits of a staycation boom. To gather the insight Huq measured the number of visits over the last three years and indexed the data to the 2019 summer season mean. The insight reveals a sharp uptick last summer, when restrictions first limited international travel, followed by an even sharper rise this year.
Working with travel data, the team members at ForwardKeys are well acquainted with the speed of change and immediate shifts in flight bookings based on sudden government announcements or unexpected spikes in Covid19 cases or strains. We understand that it can be incredibly frustrating and maddening when you are a tourism board trying to entice travellers, a hotel that has struggled with its occupancy rate for over a year, an airline trying to plan its next round of routes or even a desperate traveller in need of a holiday.
The team of analysts and insights experts at ForwardKeys can reveal an exciting revelation – things are looking rosier for the travel industry in Central America and the Caribbean, especially when looking at the future bookings for July to September. International arrivals are down by just 25% in Q3 of 2021 while in Mexico it is only down by 6% compared to the same period in 2019.
Mortgage rates hit a record low in the U.S. at the beginning of 2021. That was one factor that led to the acceleration in annual home-price growth to double-digit levels this year in many communities. While each of us may see the pick-up in price growth in our neighborhoods, that experience is not unique to Americans. Many countries chose aggressive economic policy to combat the 2020 recession. As examples, the central banks in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand cut interest rates.
For a third consecutive week, occupancy remained above 70% (25-31 July 2021), but that was down from the pandemic-era high (71.4%) achieved in the previous week. While occupancy slipped, average daily rate (ADR) advanced to yet another record high (US$143) on a nominal basis. Nominal revenue per available room (RevPAR) stayed above US$100 for a second week, though it also fell from the previous week’s level. On a total-room-inventory basis (TRI), which accounts for temporarily closed hotels, weekly occupancy was 67.5% and nominal RevPAR was US$97.
Facebook made impressive earnings last quarter—up significantly from the same period last year. Our data suggests that Facebook has stayed true to form: most of their revenue comes from the cumulation of thousands of small, niche advertisers (with a handful of big brands thrown in.) And now that the economy is recovering, there has been a massive influx of advertisers. We saw an 87% jump in the number of advertisers in Q2 compared to last year. Who are these advertisers and have the top spenders shifted?
The Dodge Momentum Index fell to 155.8 (2000=100) in July, a 6% decline from the revised June reading of 164.9. The Momentum Index, issued by Dodge Data & Analytics, is a monthly measure of the first (or initial) report for nonresidential building projects in planning, which have been shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year. Both components of the Momentum Index fell in July. Commercial planning fell 3%, while institutional planning dropped 9%.
Last month, the US government made one of what will become several monthly payments to households with children, meant to spur spending and reduce economic hardship. In today’s Insight Flash, we take advantage of our unique demographic capability to isolate households with children, and to cross-reference that by income, to evaluate the impact of this payment. Households with children began ramping spending in advance of the payment, moving from lower spend growth than shoppers without children the week of June 6 to slightly higher growth the weeks ending June 13 – July 11.
When Dick’s Sporting Goods launched House of Sports – an experiential retail and sports concept – the idea was to break the mold and create a powerful addition to the brands wider fleet. And it appears to have done just that. Dick’s Sporting Goods has been one of the top performing retailers in recent years and its recovery performance has only solidified its powerful position amid the wider retail landscape.
It's been a year for ride-share advertisers, and the drivers that keep them on the road. With quarantine in full force, the customer base dried up, with few, if any, willing to catch a ride with a stranger, mask or no mask. However, it didn't only affect the consumer, but the drivers too, as the contract employees shed their chauffeur status for whatever job was available. Flash forward to 2021 - the pandemic is in a new phase as the country is flush with vaccines - and with renewed demand, drivers are getting back in gear.
We’ve been hearing a lot about the chip shortage lately. And though the conversation mostly surrounds cars, the lack of semiconductors affects a range of industries. From construction to smartphones, much of our economy depends on these materials. Though Big Tech companies have been bringing in huge earnings, tech companies are facing headwinds with a limited supply of chips. But are supply chain issues enough to disrupt advertising budgets? It doesn’t appear so.
ATTOM, curator of the nation’s premier property database, today released its second-quarter 2021 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, which shows that 34.4 percent of mortgaged residential properties in the United States were considered equity-rich in the second quarter, meaning that the combined estimated amount of loans secured by those properties was no more than 50 percent of their estimated market value. The portion of mortgaged homes that were equity-rich in the second quarter of 2021
Even before the pandemic hit, big box retailers were both expanding their e-commerce platforms and making significant investments in brick-and-mortar store upgrades in order to stay relevant in the face of new competition. Now, as the country reopens, it’s more important than ever for these retailers to have attractive in-store shopping opportunities in order to compete with both each other and with exclusively online retailers.
The prospects for a swift tourism recovery have been dealt a blow in recent months as the Delta variant has spread rapidly across many parts of the world. While vaccination rates have continued growing in most developed countries, rising COVID-19 cases have forced some governments to reimpose restrictions or, at the very least, slow plans for reopening their economies. With summer holiday season now upon us, there are growing calls for proof of vaccination and continued uncertainties around travel guidance and requirements in many parts of the world.
With the games sprinting ahead in Tokyo, it’s all about scoreboards these days. In the spirit of healthy competition, we used Shopper Intelligence to break down top brands and onsite-search terms for select Amazon categories. Check out who ranked first, second, and third based on units sold in June 2021, plus, get powerful insights so your brand can win a medal next month.
Open source software -- that anyone can see, modify, and distribute the source code free of charge -- offers a publicly-accessible, and free alternative to proprietary software. Many companies have embraced collaborative software over the last decade and have achieved massive success. But as the open source movement picks up the pace, which companies missed the memo? By tracking the skills most associated with open source -- Python, and R -- and their proprietary counterparts -- MATLAB, SPSS, SAS, and Stata -- we’ve ranked the workforces most skilled in open source.
It’s a summer of love for Greece as the masses head back to the one European country that combines sun, sea and sand with a consistent message that its borders are open to tourists. While across Europe scheduled airline capacity lingers at around 31% below where it was two years ago, Greece has bucked the trend with capacity for August 2021 now on a par with a typical pre-pandemic August.
After skyrocketing during the pandemic, Etsy is up just 6% so far this year. That’s despite the eCommerce stock smashing first quarter earnings estimates. But Etsy also warned of slowing revenue growth and gross merchandise sales. As global lockdowns ease and on-site activity returns, what will happen next for the handmade and vintage online marketplace? In this report, we analyze Etsy’s digital footprint as a window into 2Q21 earnings, using Similarweb’s powerful Stock Intelligence data.
