Throughout the pandemic brought on by COVID-19, I’ve been blessed by the opportunity from Connect Travel, in partnership with Streetsense, to lead and moderate a series of weekly webinars for the hospitality, travel and tourism industry. Having traveled the world several times over and spending 20 plus years working in the entertainment and tourism industries, […]

Even before COVID-19, social media was an industry marked by rapid evolution — and the pandemic’s acceleration of core trends can be difficult to keep up with. Check out our summer social scoop, with the latest buzz around our favorite platforms:   Impact of Facebook Boycott Remains Unclear Beginning in July, more than a thousand […]

Cities are complicated ecosystems whose sum of parts are intricately linked. For retail, everything is connected to demand. And we acknowledge that for many downtowns and central business districts, the loss of workers, customers, and visitors will have a widespread impact on our cities for many years to come. This is where public policy — […]

According to RedFin, in the first week of June 2020, seasonally adjusted demand for housing was 25% higher than it was pre-pandemic in January and February 2020, marking the eighth straight week of rising demand, with cross country movers or those seeking homes just outside metropolitan cities increasing in size. Stay-at-home orders forced millions of […]

In the three months since we published our Pandemic Relaunch Toolkit for Restaurants + Bars, the U.S. has entered (and then retreated from) various stages of tentative reopening. Our work with clients has resulted in a number of frequently asked questions, and with constantly emerging new information, it can be hard to evolve your strategy […]

The ability to have friendly connections with people outside of our core circles has changed dramatically since March 2020. For those looking to make a move, understanding our new communities is more top of mind than ever. Leveraging technology brings neighbors —  both new and old — together for virtual experiences that make the present […]

We’re so thrilled to announce our partnership with Domestique Wine on the Major Taylor Fellowship: a three-week wine fellowship that includes housing and a stipend. The goal is to give somebody amazing a starting point in wine. They’ll work 30 hours per week at Domestique, learning all the ins-and-outs of running a wine retail operation. […]

Sanitation is a serious subject in the era of COVID-19. New standards of cleanliness and disinfection are essential components of keeping the staff and customers safe in any business. Nowhere is this more important than in restaurants and hotels as customers cautiously return to a “new normal.” Additional cleaning standards need to be implemented, PPE […]

We’re excited to announce that we’ve authored a Commercial District Recovery Guide in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and with support from the U.S. Bank Foundation — click here to learn more and download.  Small businesses in communities nationwide are facing the risk of permanent closure — to help address these challenges, […]

Even as most of the country has shifted from stay-at-home to safer-at-home orders, for many of us, dining out and shopping remain unlikely experiences in the near term. As each state takes on a varied approach to reopening, our Research + Analysis team is keeping its pulse on reopening plans by closely tracking the changes […]

We’re excited to share with everyone our Hotel Survival Guide, a resource designed to help hotel operators deliver a safe, functioning, cash-flow positive hotel upon reopening. We’re in a time of profound uncertainty — but we believe the following contains crucial guidance that will help hotels reemerge as successfully as possible.   In the Hotel […]