The preexisting shift toward online shopping was greatly accelerated, further mitigating declines of in-store sales. While online orders could not fully compensate for losses in brick-and-mortar stores at first, the pace has accelerated so much that major retailers with robust online presence are now catching up. For tribal retail, which has a much lower internet presence, the online ordering shift has been of less help. The depressed tourist segment of demand has been a particular burden for tribal retail. However, the surge in interest in drive-to rural and outdoor locations for people desperate for some form of vacation has helped tribal retailers recover at least a portion of what has been lost. That surge also bodes well for the coming year, as considerations of pandemic safety will continue to encourage driving vacations to rural areas with outdoor recreation options, a pattern that favors much of the tribal retail sector. Based upon the assumptions about the course of the pandemic described previously and our updated analysis of future trends, we estimate that tribal retail revenue for 2020 fell 10.9 percent, much better than previously expected but devastating nevertheless. For tribes, declines in retail sales also mean declines in one of their few sources of tax revenue – sales and use taxes, making the impact even more severe. For 2021, we forecast an increase in tribal retail trade revenue of 6.5 percent from 2020 levels as recovery begins on a limited basis, still leaving the industry 5.1 percent below estimated 2019 levels. In 2022, recovery is now forecast to be nearly complete, with revenue up 5.0 percent from 2021. This will place the sector only 0.4 percent below its 2019 level. Full recovery is likely to occur late in 2022 or in the first half of 2023. This information is presented in the graph on the following page. Transportation & Warehousing The passenger transportation side of the sector continues to be severely depressed. Despite some upticks in travel during the holidays, accompanied by upticks in COVID-19 case counts two to three weeks later, the industry continues to be hamstrung by the lack of business travel. That problem looks to extend at least through the first quarter and possibly the first half of this year. The airlines received additional federal help with the secondary relief package passed in late December. However, no amount of relief can fully replace actual normal business volumes. The other, and much larger and more relevant subsector to Indian country, freight, continues to show much greater strength due to the massive uptick in online shopping and greater stability in the wholesale supply chain. While a continued severe decline in passenger airline volume would have an impact on freight too (passenger planes carry more freight than widely known), the freight subsector is on track to not only recover quickly but grow in the next two years.
∴ OTHER INDUSTRY SECTORS
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