Crain's New York Business

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ASKED & ANSWERED How tech can free up medical workers for other tasks

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SUBWAY SHOPS Transit riders hold the key to Turnstyle vendors’ fortunes PAGE 3

CRAINSNEWYORK.COM

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NOVEMBER 29, 2021

TOURISM

How to fill 137,500 hospitality jobs? Robots Automation is replacing order-takers, servers, tour guides, prep cooks BY CARA EISENPRESS AND AMANDA GLODOWSKI

A SWERVE FITNESS now provides live cycling videos for gyms.

SMALL BUSINESS

WORKING IT OUT BUCK ENNIS

Boutique fitness studios are feeling the weight of adapting to a post-pandemic landscape BY ALEXANDRA WHITE

NEWSPAPER

VOL. 37, NO. 43

W

hen Swerve Fitness closed its doors in March 2020, the Flatiron District–based cycling studio rented out its bikes and hosted classes on Zoom. But its revenue was still down about 70%. After noticing the popularity of virtual fitness during the pandemic, co-founders Eric Posner and John Henry McNierney spent a year converting their business from a brick-and-mortar boutique fitness studio to a business-to-business company that provides live cycling videos to gyms. “We had to get creative,” Posner said. “It’s evolve or die.” Allowed to reopen in March, boutique fitness studios are still struggling to recover their 2019 membership and revenue levels as the pandemic leaves a lasting impact on consumer behavior. And as office employees largely continue to stay home, they See FITNESS on page 22

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HOW BUILD BACK BETTER WILL AFFECT NEW YORK PAGE 16

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ll summer, when guests arrived at the Arlo Roof Top, a cocktail bar atop the Arlo SoHo hotel, servers performed many typical duties: greeted groups, answered their questions about drinks or food, and suggested second margaritas when the first round was nearly done. But up there on the sunny roof, the servers did not take customer orders. Instead, they helped customers order via their smartphones, with their selections feeding directly into point-of-sale systems behind the bar or in the kitchen. In early 2020, nearly half a million New Yorkers worked in the city’s sprawling leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels, sightseeing spots and arts institutions. Nearly two years later, one-third of the jobs—137,500—are still missing, according to an analysis of New York Department of Labor figures, compared to a pre-pandemic six-month average by Barbara Denham, an economist at Oxford Economics. Many other industries, from software publishing to investment banking, lost far fewer positions or recovered them quickly. In the place of workers are downscaled services and myriad forms of customer self-service. Many of the latter are powered by technology: tablets and QR code-enabled See ROBOTS on page 18

RESIDENTIAL SPOTLIGHT

A downtown home appeals to artists, authors PAGE 4

11/24/21 3:03 PM


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