New Year, Same Challenges

Editorial

The calendar no longer says 2020.

And that’s a really good thing. Over the past 10 months or so, those four numbers became synonymous with pandemic, challenge, uncertainty, and more challenge. Turning the calendar over helps psychologically, but it doesn’t change the equation. Not yet, anyway.

In fact, as the experts interviewed for our Economic Outlook section indicated, while there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, there is still quite a bit of tunnel to get through. If this is the beginning of the end (of the pandemic), the end is still a ways off.

And, in some ways, there’s a good chance things will actually get worse before they get better, because, as some experts noted, the relief that many companies received through stimulus initiatives will not be there, or there to the same extent, like they were in 2020. So many businesses will be facing a reality check, and a scary one at that.

But if 2021 looks daunting in many respects, we can look back at 2020, not for painful memories, or only painful memories, but also for inspiration.

Indeed, as we’ve written on several occasions, the best thing about 2020, from our respective, was the manner in which the business community responded to a crisis truly without precedent. Going back to the middle of last March, we wrote about how business owners in this region had been through a lot over the past few decades — recessions, including a ‘great’ one; a tornado; the sudden quiet after 9/11; Springfield’s fiscal meltdown; and so much more. We wrote that this pandemic would be unlike any of those and would test the mettle of this region in ways we could not have imagined.

We were right about that, but we were also right when we said this region was up for the fight. It was, and it is, and a look back at 2020 proves this.

Yes, some businesses have been lost, mostly in the retail and hospitality sectors, and the losses have not been insignificant. Meanwhile, a number of mainstay businesses have been battered and bloodied — MGM Springfield, the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Springfield Symphony, the Thunderbirds, Union Station, UMass Amherst and all the colleges and universities, every restaurant and performance venue in the region … the list goes on.

But they are still standing, and, in the meantime, a large army of small businesses have responded with imagination, perseverance, and the entrepreneurial spirit that has defined the region for more than 250 years.

We’re told many of these stories over the past nine months, and they have been inspirational. Businesses that found themselves struggling, through no fault of their own, discovered ways to pivot, find new revenue streams, and, in some rare cases, actually expand and grow their businesses.

If there was any bright spot to 2020 — and there were not many — watching this collective display of courage and determination was it.

And now that the calendar has turned to 2021, nothing has really changed. The operating environment is as challenging as ever, and even moreso for most hospitality businesses, now that winter has set in.

The next few months may be the most difficult yet, but we are confident that those same qualities that helped businesses ride out 2020 will enable them to continue the ride — until the day when ‘normal’ returns and the predicted pent-up demand will provide a much-needed lift to ventures across all sectors.

As the new year begins, the light at the end of the tunnel is still a ways off. But at least we can see it.