When airports and travel plans had to come to a halt a few months ago, there was a popular airport spa chain known as XpresSpa that had faced the reality have having to close. This business had been deemed a non-essential business, when lock-downs around the United States had been implemented over the coronavirus. This meant that hundreds of employees would be out of work and there wasn't any clear idea of when things might return to normal.
For businesses that are scattered across a variety of industries, it soon became necessary for them to immediately consider altering their business model if they wanted to survive.
For XpresSpa this meant considering something much different, and that would turn out to be COVID-19 testing. There was a growing need for testing around the world and they figured that they would be able to adapt to meet this market need. Now, they'd be offering things like temperature readings or nose swabs instead of massages.
They sought to revamp their spas into testing facilities that would be stationed in different airports. By May they had been able to launch their first testing program and they ran through hundreds of tests each day, about 500 people at the airport.
Once they faced the reality of having to close then it didn't take long for the group behind the XpresSpa company to reach out to the CDC and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to try and get their new plan rolling. They were also looking to work with private labs around the nation as well.
More than 40 testing locations.
The plan included at least 46 airport locations that were expected to be outfitted with the testing services. And this is just one business that was able to adapt their business model in a short amount of time and change it to something that could currently service the market, whatever need it might be able to meet.
Other businesses have been forced to do the same, whether it be restaurants now offering groceries and at-home cooking kits, or distilleries offering hand sanitizier, small artisans and craft-makers offering face masks etc, there have been thousands of changes made to weather that unexpected storm.
This further goes to show how those businesses and owners who are more adaptable, can often times gain more freedom to be creative in what services or products they offer and that helps to keep them going when others might fail.
For those who didn't recently adapt for example, and seek to make new online sales in the past few months, or find new ways to connect with their clients etc, they could be struggling much more to come back from it all.
