The concept of buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store (also known as “BOPS”) is not new. The pandemic just pushed more restaurants and consumers to use mobile ordering for curbside pickup services. Curbside pickup is good for business When COVID hit, many restaurants might have used curbside pickup simply to cover the loss from their dine-in services. It turned out that restaurants offering curbside pickup during the pandemic fared better than those without such a service. It did not take long for restaurant chains to realize the benefits of curbside pickup. Panera Bread, Burger King, Shake Shack, and Taco Bells are among the first chains that rolled out new store design plans to embrace curbside pickup. Chipotle even introduced a digital-only restaurant that only offered delivery and curbside pickup services without a dining area. Using Chipotle’s digital-only restaurant as an example, the owners can: Open the business in a less premium retail location with a lower startup cost
About two years ago, I expected home-sharing and luxury hotels to recover sooner than other lodging products based on a consumer survey about travelers’ shifting intentions to use various lodging products after the pandemic (Kwok, 2020). We have already seen how well home-sharing facilities and extended hotels have been doing since summer 2020. Now that we are gradually recovering from the pandemic, has luxury travel come back yet? People want to travel again in 2022 Unlike 2020 or 2021, where almost half of the consumers had canceled or postponed their vacations, only 5.5% may push their plans to a later date, and less than 4% want to cancel this year (Jacob, 2022). People are ready to hit the road again. Moreover, many people want longer trips and will book them early. Some luxury vacations are already fully booked this year. Luxury vacations are trending now Not everyone lost jobs or struggled during the pandemic. Those who accumulated more wealth in the last two year