Schools, stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues shut. Sports leagues suspended their seasons. Hotels emptied. And billions of people found themselves under lockdown, working from home— 
or suddenly out of work. Months of self-isolation and, in many 
cases, significant spending constraints 
quickly and dramatically changed how 
consumers behave. And in the absence 
of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus 
and in a world facing ongoing economic 
pressures—the Organization for 
Economic Co-operation and Development 
(OECD) forecasts that the global economy 
will contract 6 percent this year1—many 
of these behavioural changes are likely 
to endure. Consumers reduce and 
redirect discretionary spending
It’s normal for people to reduce 
discretionary spending in times of social 
or economic uncertainty. The COVID-19 
crisis also seems to have prompted 
consumers to re-evaluate their overall 
spending priorities: many pre-pandemic 
must-haves are now seen as nice-to-
haves—at best. According to Deloitte’s State of the 
Consumer Tracker, which is measuring 
global consumer sentiment during the 
pandemic, Canadian consumers expect 
to spend 20 percent less on discretionary 
items in the next four weeks than they 
did in the previous four weeks. They 
expect to spend 51 percent less on 
travel, 15 percent less on restaurants 
and takeout, and 14 percent less on 
entertainment over the same period. In 
contrast, consumers expect to spend 
29 percent more on groceries and 
16 percent more on internet and mobile 
services.2 These trends indicate it will still 
be quite some time before the hospitality 
sector returns to business as usual, and 
those businesses that depend on travel 
and tourism are likely to face deeper 
challenges. Business travel, long a key driver of 
hospitality sector revenues, will also take 
time to recover, though estimates range 
from the end of 2020 to two or three 
years from now. Some portion of business 
travel—perhaps 5 to 10 percent—may not 
return at all because the companies that 
once paid for that travel may disappear.3 
Hospitality organizations will want to 
stay on top of business travel trends and 
adjust their business planning accordingly. Canadians intend to use digital to meet many needs: 
Streaming entertainment 57%
Videoconferencing with family 52%
Using payment apps/services 52%
Virtual reality meet-ups 27%
Virtual exercise programs 22%
Source: Deloitte, Global State of the Consumer Tracker, Canada, June 27, 2020