A survey by Simply Business suggests that 1 in 6 business owners believes they will never fully recover from the effects of Covid on their business. But of course, this is likely to be heavily skewed from industry to industry.
While people queued outside grocery stores and online retailers in certain sectors struggled to meet demand, travel and hospitality were closed completely.
So it wasn’t the same picture in every sector. Let’s take a look at the industries most affected by the pandemic.
Travel
Both domestic and international travel was put on hold for months at a time. But with summer 2020 and summer 2021 both allowing domestic travel with relatively few restrictions, the “staycations” market saw a surge in bookings over this time too.
It wasn’t the same picture for international travel.
Huge international visitor hubs saw stark losses. Visitor numbers in Las Vegas fell to their lowest since the 1980s and demand for flights to New York fell by 80%
Package holiday companies and airlines were desperately struggling to survive in the face of lockdowns and then restrictions when travel was permissable.
It’s an even more complex picture for cruise companies which often have to navigate restrictions in multiple countries to run their cruises. A recent study suggests online interest in cruises fell sharply in 2020. This continued into 2021 as well.
Hospitality
The UK’s restaurants and pubs were forced to close their doors altogether for many months and even when reopening, were faced with restrictions and requirements that made it difficult to operate.
While 49% of Brits in a recent study said they missed going for a meal at a restaurant during the pandemic, many still stayed away even when restaurants were able to reopen for fear of catching covid or the reluctance to sit outside in the highly unreliable British climate.
It’s a long road ahead for hospitality but with restrictions now eased in the UK and the population craving social interaction, some experts believe we could be heading for another “roaring twenties,” which would certainly be a boom for hospitality.
Beauty
Who’s buying make up to sit at home, right?
But actually, not only was demand for some hair and beauty products drastically impacted, but the beauty and hair salons of the UK were also forced to close their doors for large periods of time.
Even in the gaps when salons were able to open their doors, social distancing and restrictions in the services they were able to offer drastically cut revenues.
In fact, the sector saw a 45% drop in turnover in 2020 compared with 2019.
The Arts and Entertainment
Theatres and cinemas were also forced to close their doors.
Even when theatres were able to reopen their doors, social distancing restricted ticket sales and casts getting covid and having to isolate saw a number of performances cancelled.
For theatres in particular, there’s a long road ahead.
Office Space
Work from home has been a think for some time. But covid made it really a thing and arguably accelerated the remote working movement by decades overnight.
Some people are gladly returning to offices. But not all will.
The hybrid model of working both from home and from the office at different points in the week is gaining momentum.
Interestingly, while kwfinder.com shows an unsurprising decrease in searches for queries like “office space manchester” and “office space london” over the height of the pandemic, it does look to have recovered.
So there’s reason to believe office space will still be a requirement going forward for many businesses, but the requirements may be different permanently.
Not the only ones…
Of course these sectors are not the only ones. Nobody and no business remained untouched and unchanged over the pandemic. But for sectors like travel and hospitality in particular, the road to recovery could be a long one.
Header image courtesy of https://customneon.co.uk/ used under a Creative Commons License. Original image here.