After a year of business closures and shifting consumer behaviors due to COVID-19, companies have started to return to some semblance of normalcy in recent months. On Wednesday, Yelp released a quarterly economic report highlighting year-over-year business openings across sectors and state lines. According to the data, some portions of the Texas economy are booming; others, not so much.
“We are seeing local businesses successfully adapt to serve their communities amidst continued uncertainty caused by the ongoing pandemic,” said Justin Norman, Yelp’s vice president of data science, in a press release. “Our data shows that an overwhelming majority of businesses that had to temporarily close their doors during the pandemic have reopened.”
Nationally, 85% of businesses that closed temporarily during the coronavirus pandemic have since reopened as of the end of September, according to Yelp, with beauty services (90%) leading the way.
In the third quarter of 2020, 14,330 new businesses opened in Texas and this increased 4.5% in the third quarter of 2021 (14,968), per Yelp, with 1,966 "restaurants and food" businesses opening across the state, up 1.1% from the third quarter in 2020. Among hotel and travel businesses, third-quarter openings jumped 51.9% year over year, with 360 openings in 2021, and nightlife business openings increased 68.6% during this time period, according to Yelp.
“The strong number of reopened businesses combined with the high volume of new business openings is evidence that the economy continues to recover from pandemic lows,” Norman said. “As people return to activities that were most impacted by pandemic restrictions, like dining out, going to the gym or socializing at a bar, we expect to see this pent up demand create new opportunities for local businesses.”
