With this summer promising to be a Super Shot for Amusement Parks after their recent Free Fall, we take a Flying Swing at what May trends indicate for the Fun House to come. In today’s Insight Flash, we look at recent trends in the overall industry, the mix for each park of in-state vs. out-of-state visitors, and whether this summer’s attendance will be driven by loyalists or new visitors. In May 2021, Amusement Parks overall saw a decline of over -30% in the number of individuals making a purchase versus 2019.
After being grounded for over a year, Americans have begun traveling again. Now, people all over the country are trading the comforts of home with the experiences of hotels, resorts, and casinos. Our research suggests that both these industries have begun to rebound nicely from the pandemic. As of June 2021, foot traffic in hotels and resorts was up 140% over June 2020. Casinos are up 243% since June 2020. Although both sectors have seen great improvements since the peak of the pandemic, however hotels and resorts remain 30% below June 2019 levels, while casinos are still down 23%.
The world keeps changing. We don’t have to tell you that. COVID-19 took almost everything we knew and flipped it upside down. From March 2020, work-from-home companies saw demand surge, while travel came to a virtual standstill. But now, as we’re coming out from the other side, consumer trends are shifting once again. What’s next for the market? What trends should you keep tabs on as the world begins the next new norm.
Dollar General has been accused of causing food deserts in low-income areas. While there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence on this, there has been little empirical evidence. By tracking Dollar General employees and comparing them to traditional grocery store employees, we are able to better understand the relationship between Dollar General and food deserts. Although both Dollar General and traditional grocery stores have been growing steadily
The jet boost that the pandemic provided to online retailers has accelerated investor demand for the warehouse properties crucial to the supply chain. In the U.S., just shy of one-quarter of all investment transactions were for industrial assets in 2020 — a record for the market. In Europe a record was also set, with 16% of all 2020 transaction volume involving industrial property, Real Capital Analytics data shows. Warehouse properties let to Amazon — the business that has perhaps most changed the way consumers in Europe and North America shop — are in strong demand.
Restaurants are eager to get back to their standard fare, complete with $1 Wing Wednesdays—but there is no simple ‘on’ switch to get a supply chain up and running again. Restaurants are struggling to meet consumer expectations on a number of fronts. Though some of the issues are apparent (like the ‘we’re hiring!’ signs everywhere), many of the issues are taking place in the kitchen. As B2B companies scramble to process goods, shortages of key ingredients are causing delivery delays and surging prices.
The mid-year review edition of the ALN newsletter will be published in July, but with only one day remaining in June for property updates to be collected, the data for the first half of 2021 is largely in place. One observation that jumps out from the data is the representation of Florida near the top of the list of markets with the strongest average effective rent growth so far this year. Florida markets comprise four of the top 10 markets while no other state boasts more than one, and seven of the top 15 markets – no other state has more than Arizona’s two.
Everyone seems to love the U.S. industrial sector these days, but when did so many investors come to that conclusion and how long can it continue? The rise of e-commerce has been a driving force behind changing investor perceptions on the sector, but there are two misleading signals in the trends for e-commerce. The industrial sector was long viewed as sleepy and slow-moving, and few investors saw exciting opportunities within such a low volatility sector. Industrial deal volume represented only 15% of investment in the big four sectors
While pharmacies did feel the pain of the pandemic like other retail sectors, they hardly suffered an extended period of weakness. And their recent performance – driven by vaccines and wider reopenings – has put even relative strength into context, as key brands have seen exceptional growth of late. Looking at visit rates for CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid compared to the equivalent months in 2019 shows the sector’s strong position.
Wage inflation has been a hot topic of late, with many employers saying that they are having to raise compensation to attract workers. This is an area that touches every corner of the economy as labor is a key input in almost every industry. Even the Federal Reserve is starting to take note, last week indicating via its “dot plot” a median estimate of two rate hikes before the end of 2023. Since a dovish Fed has been a central thesis of bullish equity markets, investors will continue to pay close attention to wages.
Beating the Monday blues is set to get easier in the post-pandemic world, as Huq’s latest insight into commuter patterns reveals a significant shift away from travel at the start of the week. Last week we looked at peak travel times on TFL’s Greater London network and how tends towards the evenings – with little apparent morning rush hour. Today Huq’s high-frequency mobility data shows how ‘hybrid’ working could impact businesses trading off the commute economy throughout the week.
As some markets begin opening back up, we’ve seen early indications of industries on the road to recovery. We’ve also seen signals on what consumer behaviors are here to stay. We’ve taken a look at the mobile app categories experiencing the biggest growth in Q2 2021 compared to pre-pandemic times (Q4 2019) by downloads, consumer spend and time spent — an indication of which apps are in demand, most used and most valued.
Welcome to the July Apartment List National Rent Report. Our national index increased by 2.3 percent in June, continuing the trend of rapid price growth since the start of the year. So far in 2021, rental prices have grown a staggering 9.2 percent. To put that in context, in previous years growth from January to June is usually just 2 to 3 percent. After this month’s spike, rents have been pushed well above our expectations of where they would have been had the pandemic not disrupted the market.
For the past two quarters, Boston has ranked as the most liquid commercial property market in the U.S., bumping Manhattan into second place, according to the RCA Capital Liquidity Scores. In the chart below we illustrate how Boston has usurped Manhattan, showing the six inputs which are weighted to calculate the overall scores. –For Boston, the component of unique, active buyers has slipped only slightly in the past four quarters, while for Manhattan this input has been falling since the end of 2019, dropping at an accelerated pace over the past two quarters.
Prime Day had yet another huge year in 2021, but while the eCommerce success is almost a given, the offline effects were certainly in question this year. In recent years, Amazon’s Prime Day has had a significant impact on offline retail, with competitors like Best Buy, Walmart and Target driving strong results in July 2019 and even seeing a bump in October 2020. We dove into these competitors, Whole Foods, and even Amazon warehouses to see how 2021’s Prime Day impact was felt in physical retail.
Another Amazon Prime Day has come and gone - and we’ve been digging into how the sales performed for the fourth consecutive year. This year, like last, Amazon kept the official Prime Day dates under wraps until a few weeks before the event, likely to make it more difficult for their competitors from planning their own sales on the same dates. As with years prior, Amazon Prime Day led to incredible sales for the e-commerce giant, with over $5.6 billion in sales within the first 24 hours.
Jumbo-conforming mortgage rate spread widened during the pandemic.Low interest rates during the pandemic didn’t favor homebuyers with large-balance mortgage loans the same way as it did other homebuyers. While the mortgage rate dropped to a record low in 2020, the jumbo-conforming mortgage rate spread widened. In other words, jumbo loans were relatively more expensive than conforming loans.
The idea of shops anchored by a price point is an international phenomenon, with Dollar Stores opening up more new locations than any other retail concept in the US and One Pound Shops popular in the UK. In today’s Insight Flash, we compare these “Dollar” Stores across both geographies. In the US, Dollar Store Growth outpaced the larger Discount/Club industry throughout 2019 and 2020. Since February, however, that growth has slowed and “Discounters” are seeing higher spend growth.
Following the roll-out of the vaccine against the COVID-19 virus, the initial excitement of post-COVID life appears to be wearing off – slightly. What does that mean for the market? In this month’s Digital Heat we see travel trends start to stabilize following the strong growth in previous months. Read on for a deeper dive into what’s driving these trends as well as other changes in online behavior. How are we doing this? Digital Heat, an easy-to-use heatmap to help you quickly identify at scale which industries and companies are most impacted by the current economic environment.
COVID-19 cases are declining, though at a slower pace than a few months ago. The U.S. is recording ≈ 11,000 cases per day, down from January’s peak of more than 260K per day. Deaths are around 300 per day, decreasing from the 3,300 deaths per day we saw in January. Despite experts’ guidance that vaccines are the ticket out of this pandemic, vaccinations nationwide have continued to slide from their peak of about 3.3 million doses administered per day to about 780,000 doses.
