COVID-19 ECONOMICS : Competitive Survival in a Devastated Industry: Evidence from Hotels during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented collapse of the U.S. economy in late March 2020. The federal government scrambled to provide emergency financial support through a variety of hastily-assembled programs, such as PPP, but relief did not always go to where it was most needed. This article shows how a business' failure risk in a pandemic depends on its native ability to adapt to changing consumer preferences in a pandemic. It demonstrates native adaptability in the context of one particularly hard-hit industry, the lodging industry, and argues that funds can be distributed more efficiently by taking native adaptability into account