How businesses managed during the uncertainty of the pandemic
(Editor’s note: The world was engulfed in a worldwide pandemic beginning in March 2020, and since, much has changed here in Centre County, nationwide and around the world. This is the fourth part in a month-long series which will tell the stories of how Centre County reacted to the pandemic and reflect on the measures taken to keep the communities of the county and their people safe and informed.)
“Pivot” is one of those pandemic buzz words that has perhaps grown a little tired after two years, but for local businesses, pivoting to find new ways to reach customers just became a way life during the roller coaster ride of COVID-19 restrictions.
“The ability to pivot certainly helped many businesses navigate an ever-changing operating environment. Some businesses were more prepared to do so than others, so a valuable learning lesson moving forward is the need to be flexible,” said Fritz Smith, executive director of The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau.
The first two years of the pandemic were “a very scary time for all businesses and organizations because of the resulting shock and general uncertainty,” said Bellefonte Intervalley of Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Gary Hoover. “We were all learning to adapt, suddenly, to a situation in constant flux, as we came up on the learning curve and had to respond to a rapidly changing business environment and to evolving governmental policy and safety requirements.”
“What I will remember most is the entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity displayed by our businesses and organizations in finding new ways to deliver goods and services, restaurants pivoting to takeout and other businesses making more use of electronic ordering — with no-contact pick up, or adjusting hours are examples,” said Hoover.
“The tourism industry placed increased emphasis on all the outdoors activities we have to offer to visitors and the steps taken by local lodging establishments to provide safe facilities for travelers. All those adaptations were vigorously supported by a community determined to keep their local establishments operating.”
In Philipsburg, Stan LaFuria from the Moshannon Valley Economic Development Partnership said “the COVID 19 pandemic was something that we had never seen before as an organization. We experienced the Great Recession of 2007-08 but it was not caused by a health issue, a virus. A virus that could kill a person. Unbelievable. COVID caused people to have a fear for their lives, it was a question of life or death, and it was important how people dealt with it.”
He added that COVID affected different segments of the economy very differently.
“People feared that many restaurants would go out of business. The government had a primary focus on these types of businesses and created loan and grant programs to help them. The MVEDP works closely with the manufacturers in the area. A number of these manufacturers are very busy now, and they were busy even during the COVID. They might have experienced problems with supply chain and securing raw materials but it was not a situation that put them in jeopardy of closing, like a restaurant that was in jeopardy because of a lack of foot traffic,” said LaFuria.
Lee Anne Jefferies, executive director of Downtown State College Improvement District said the pandemic forced businesses to re-evaluate their business model.
“Many restaurants quickly made changes to provide contactless take-out and delivery options. Those retailers with e-commerce turned their focus to free local deliveries or curbside pick up during the shutdown. Some weathered better than others … it required a ‘think on your feet’ mindset that many embraced where others struggled to adapt or simply made the decision to suspend operations temporarily,” said Jeffries.
RELIANCE ON PENN STATE
One thing was made clear about our local economy during the pandemic; it is very reliant on Penn State students, families and fans coming to visit.
“We are fortunate to be the home of a major university; obviously, there is a lot of good that comes from that. As a result, we’ve always been fairly insulated from economic downturns in the past. So, while there certainly was and is a desire to address that over-reliance, there was perhaps a lack of real urgency to do so. The pandemic was a whole different beast, something no one could have predicted. The impact of no students on campus and no fans in the stands for home football games during the early stages of the pandemic was a gut punch to the community, hospitality businesses in particular. We know we need greater balance in the economy, and in the visitation economy as well. For our purposes, we are focused on growing Happy Valley into a four-season weekend and weekday sports, leisure and business destination,” said Smith.
Jeffries added, “We learned how heavily our small college town relies upon the university. Of course, we knew this, but the pandemic forced us to see what our town would look like without students, parents and visitors. Without a nearby metropolis, we were extremely vulnerable during Penn State’s shutdown. We realized that our long-term residents needed to step up in a big way to give our businesses the support they needed.”
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
That community support for the businesses came through big time. After all, Smith said, “Happy Valley has a reputation for being very community-minded and philanthropic. Throughout the pandemic, the support for local restaurants was incredible. Various Facebook groups popped up to help generate businesses for restaurants, food trucks and concession businesses. Community organizations also came together on the Helping Happy Valley initiative, which was highlighted by a virtual event to support businesses during the critical holiday shopping season. More than 8,600 people watched some or all of the five-hour Facebook live broadcast in December 2020. Residents want homegrown businesses to succeed and thrive. This was evident during COVID and remains a priority now.”
Jeffries said the community should support DID’s “BOGO gift card program” that incentivized gift card purchases during the shutdown.
“We saw an effort to spend dollars locally more than ever before and we hope the community realizes that impact and continue to think local first — proactively versus reactively. Our organization shifted our focus, we provided information on COVID grants and loans, and worked with local leaders to share the most updated recovery efforts,” said Jeffries.
In Bellefonte, Hoover said, ”various organizations kept the flow of information on changing business/organization hours and ways to access them going and people were encouraged to shop local and make it a point of supporting the struggling establishments, ordering takeout more frequently, for example, or buying gift certificates for redemption at a future time. Our community was very determined to support local businesses and organizations with patronage and that support was, in my opinion decisive — not only economically but as a boost to morale and determination.”
LaFuria said of the millions and trillions of dollars that went out to support business and individuals during COVID was “amazing” to him.
“Businesses were provided funding that may have started as a loan from the government, but then could be converted to a grant if conditions met. The grant thing was very new to economic developers, there has never been much in the way of grants available to assist businesses, usually it’s just low interest loans. The idea of giving out grants to businesses is not a normal thing. If grants were available to everyone, everyone would consider opening their own business to be their own boss,” said LaFuria. “In my mind, there was a huge role of bankers to play in helping their customers given the government’s release of all the money. They needed to know and understand the new COVID programs that were released in order to help businesses. They needed to know the programs so that they could ably help their customers with securing money from the programs. Bankers and accountants were very extremely important during the pandemic.”
MVEPD worked to get information about the available funding sources out to area business.
“We were very proactive in getting the program information out to the business community. At the beginning of the pandemic when all of the PPE was made available and being distributed, we signed on with Centre County to receive that PPE for distribution to the community,” said LaFuria.
LOOKING FORWARD
Smith said that over the last two years the local economy lost a lot of progress “that cannot be recovered.”
“However, across hospitality metrics, lodging being one of them, we are seeing some rebound. January lodging results are off to a good start in 2022, with improvements in all three major categories — occupancy, average daily rate, revenue per available room, above last year. Weekends are in high demand through Thanksgiving. As for a timeline to return to where we were in 2019, it will likely be 2023/2024 before we get to pre-COVID levels,” said Smith.
He added that from a visitation economy perspective, much was done over the pandemic to help the recovery and it is starting to take shape now.
“There will always be challenges, but I think Happy Valley is well positioned for a time of growth and opportunity. There is a lot of positive momentum across our local communities. We are excited about the potential manifested in the formation of our Sports & Entertainment Commission. We have an opportunity to accentuate the marketing of our arts and cultural scene, which is growing with the catalyst being the new Palmer Museum site opening in 2023. We will continue to develop our agritourism product, and we will be rebuilding our meetings business,” said Smith.
Bellefonte weathered the storm of the pandemic “pretty well,” said Hoover.
“Certainly, by comparison to many other areas. I am pleased to add that I am only aware of one Bellefonte chamber member that went out of business citing the pandemic as the reason. There are probably others and there are some that may have closed a physical location — but continued operations from a residence or moved on-line. All of those could potentially come back, as the pandemic subsides, probably stronger as they can re-add a physical location to a now strengthened on-line component.”
Hoover said he has seen a general resurgence of business in Bellefonte and he has “no doubt” that steps have been made toward recovery.
“The state of the hospitality industry is a good indicator of recovery in that important sector, and that sector drives a huge amount of spending that uplifts our other local establishments. I have been informed that overall room bookings are currently at 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels. I think that tells us that things are much improved and certainly looking up, but that we have a ways to go to reach and then exceed pre-pandemic levels. And we are all going to continue to work together to do that,” he said.
Jeffries adds that while State College was hit with several closures during the pandemic, much like other small towns, the community was fortunate to have 16 new businesses open their doors in 2016.
“The demand for downtown locations is rising again and we will have more announcements in the very near future,” she said.
Still, as we continue to rebound, a new issue has arisen second hand from the situation.
“The labor shortage is a problem across all industries. However, hospitality has been particularly hard hit, and slow to bounce back. Our segment is learning how to do more with less, but that is not always a sustainable position,” said Smith. HVAB has formed a Workforce Task Force and will soon launch a PR campaign to help address the issue.
“There are plenty of wonderful opportunities to work in a fast-paced, rewarding industry that is essential to the tourism economy,” said Smith. “Our food and beverage, lodging and entertainment venues need good, reliable employees. It’s actually a great time to enter the field and make a difference.”
