This is a recession like no other. While many sectors collapse, others can hardly keep up with growing demand. All over the world, business owners eagerly scan the latest economic outlooks to see when things return to normal. Unfortunately, previous crises show that those numbers only tell part of the story. Recovery is a complex process that is not evenly distributed across industries. Some recover fast (hotels and restaurants after the 2008 financial crisis), others painfully slow (the construction industry). On top of that, some sectors or parts of it are shaken up much harder than others (see for example the graph on the US travel industry below, source: skift.com). Business owners cannot take for granted that when the economy in general recovers, their sector will follow smooth and swiftly. Moreover, during recovery, new players and business models may change and capture the market (see low-cost business models like AirBnB attracting cost-conscious buyers). Economic growth is just one of the forces shaping an industry and the more so in post-crisis periods. Many additional factors have to be analysed in order to foresee how fast an industry will recover, how it will turn out, and what the best, new opportunities are.
Read more on how the US travel industry recovered from the 2008 financial crisis on Skift’s website.