The Greater Coachella Valley is starting to reopen after more than a year of pandemic-driven lockdown, but whether the reopening continues depends on "good behaviors" from everyone, the head of the valley's largest chamber body said during a recent interview.
"It's important that we as a community continue to do the things necessary to support the reopening," Greater Coachella Valley Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Joshua Bonner told Desert Magazine. "Getting our community vaccinated, continuing to abide by local, county and state rules regarding conducting business, wearing facemask, etc. Those types of good behaviors are going to continue to drive the positive trends that are allowing us to reopen."
A reopened Valley has much to look forward to.
"We're looking for sustained economic activity," Bonner said. "I really can't say that enough, it's so important that our economy has opened back up, but it's equally important that it stay open and businesses have some level of security and assurance moving forward."
The Valley is ready for what it has done without since lockdowns began in March of last year.
"We're hoping that pent-up demand, particularly in the tourism market, drives traffic into the market and we can start to recover some of the lost revenue that we've experienced," Bonner said. "It would be especially significant if we could start to bring back our major festivals, as they are a key economic driver for our valley."
Bonner, who lives in Indio, has been with the Greater Chamber since its inception and has been its CEO since 2014, following a career in advertising and marketing. Bonner also has served on the board of area nonprofits, including the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership (CVEP), Desert Recreation Foundation and Desert Advertising Federation. He serves on the Board of Regents for the US Chamber’s Institute for Organizational Management and on the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Metro Cities Council.
The COVID-19 pandemic that has thus far killed about half a million in the U.S., more than 2.8 million people worldwide, and sickened tens of millions more, did not pass over the Valley. By the end of March, almost 4,500 had died from COVID in the Coachella Valley and Riverside County, according to figures issued by Eisenhower Health.
"The Greater Coachella Valley had to overcome significant challenges this year, I would argue in many ways even greater than some of our surrounding areas," Bonner said. "Because our economy is so heavily reliant on tourism, which is one of the industries that has been hit the hardest by the pandemic and subsequent business restrictions and shut down, our region was heavily impacted."
Those challenges are reflected in the region’s jobs lost, of which the "Coachella Valley by far had the most significant impact relative to workforce percentage," Bonner said.
"In addition to direct impact from mitigation efforts by the state and county, we also at times were significantly impacted by an ever-changing set of rules," Bonner continued. "For instance, the movement back-and-forth between tiers often made it very difficult for businesses to predict in planning their business model through the crisis."
Despite the difficulties, Bonner said he saw reasons for pride in how the Valley's business community responded, proving we are better together.
"Through all that, I was proud to see the resilience of our business community, especially the small business owners," he said. "I also think groups and organizations like the Greater Palm Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau, CVEP, the Riverside Economic Recovery Task Force and our partners at the cities and county all worked extremely hard to support the business community however they could."
Bonner offered a short list of events he's most excited about returning to the Valley.
"I would say two equally, the music festivals as well as the tennis tournament are both super important to our local economy," he said. "I think we need to get all of our events back obviously, but I think it's safe to say that those are two of the most impactful events that we've missed during this pandemic. Returning those large events, along with the other events Coachella Valley is famous for, will have the most significant impact in getting our economy back on track."
