The recipe for recovery? Depends on whom you ask

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

INTO THE FUTURE: Mark K. W. Gim, bottom left, The Washington Trust Co. president and chief operating officer, provides his outlook for the Rhode Island economy at PBN’s Economic Trends Summit on Feb. 18. Also participating in the virtual event were, clockwise from top left, Thomas Tzitzouris, director at Strategas Research Partners; PBN Editor Michael Mello; Alden Anderson Jr., CBRE/New England senior vice president and partner; and Kristen Adamo, Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau CEO and president.

The recipe for recovery? Depends on whom you ask

POINT of view matters, perhaps now more than ever. Indeed, panelists at Providence Business News’ Economic Trends Summit on Feb. 18 painted very different pictures of the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the way out, dependent upon industry, business size, location and other factors.

While keynote speaker and panel moderator Thomas Tzitzouris, director at Strategas Research Partners, criticized federal aid as “overstimulating” spending and creating a “lasting legacy” of inflation, panelist Mark K. W. Gim, president and chief operating officer at The Washington Trust Co., framed it differently.

Acknowledging Tzitzouris’ view of “overly accommodative” federal support, Gim urged attendees of the virtual summit to consider other perspectives. As the federal government tries to extinguish the metaphorical inferno of the pan-

BY NANCY LAVIN | Lavin@PBN.com

demic, it may not be as concerned with aiming its firehose too specifically, as long as it puts out the fire, Gim said.

And for hard-hit small businesses such as the ones using the Westerly-based bank to apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans, government relief programs are a “lifeline,” Gim said.

Using another analogy, he said, “If the medicine doesn’t taste good but it helps the cure, maybe that’s an ill we have to accept in the short run to get to a more stable place in the long run.”

Another panelist called for more targeted spending of future stimulus dollars, particularly to help Providence’s tourism and hospitality industry. Kristen Adamo, CEO and president of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that while southern Rhode Island and its beaches are poised to benefit from an expected travel rebound, the capital city is set to see another summer of major losses.

That’s because the urban core’s tourism is driven by large-scale entertainment and corporate events, none of which can return without mass vaccinations.

Also a problem is the lack of access to the R.I. Convention Center, which since early on in the pandemic has been outfitted to be a field hospital and testing facility. It could take more than two months to convert the building back to a convention center when the time comes, which will exacerbate the city’s ability to bounce back, Adamo said.

“I feel like I’m yelling that the sky is falling, but in Providence, it really is,” said Adamo, estimating that the city lost $70 million in direct spending in 2020 from events booked through her organization that have been canceled or postponed, about $50 million of which came through events at the convention center.

Some state programs, such as the Take it Outside grants administered through the R.I. Commerce Corp., helped her industry survive.