(4) Simple outlook
Most coworking spaces have a number of hard weeks and months ahead of them. We will see more business closures and bankruptcies, the longer severe restrictions are applied, but also an increasing number of takeovers or (temporarily) changed business models.
Even if all measures were quickly withdrawn, the collapse in demand would not recover immediately, but rather gradually. Catch-up effects will not compensate for all the economic losses already incurred. And income from bigger events or international digital nomads in particular will be missed for longer.
In the long term, however, the market prospects for coworking spaces are even brighter than before the crisis.
Increased investment in remote work technologies and greater acceptance of them are considerably expanding the potential user base for coworking spaces, especially in suburban and rural regions.
Those who cannot find a new job may end up creating one themselves. The bankruptcies caused by the crisis will be followed by numerous new companies whose founders are looking for P2P support networks. In this phase, there is rarely a desire to invest start-up capital in office equipment or to enter into long-term, inflexible rental contracts.
And with office space that was left vacant during the crisis, there is more space available that coworking spaces can revitalise.
Even operators of coworking spaces whose facilities do not survive the crisis are likely to benefit from these prospects. After all, they maintain their expertise and can apply it afresh.
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Related article: How Coworking Spaces Are Getting Their Business Up & Running Again
