Swimming pool manufacturers and hot tubs and distributors in the United States and Europe are racing to meet a wave of demand for this type of commodity, with many forced to stay in their homes to avoid the Corona virus epidemic, which has achieved unprecedented popularity that some have said they have not seen before.
Frustrated by the longevity of the virus and the anxiety of a second wave of infections, some American consumers have resorted to making swimming pools from cattle water tanks, despite health and safety concerns.
"I have been working in this field for 35 years, and I've never seen anything like this before," said Thomas Ebel, CEO of Only Alpha Alpha Pool Products in Indiana.
Eple said that the demand for swimming pools produced by the company rose by 200 percent in 60 days after witnessing a recession in March and April, adding that he worked to double production now by increasing the number of workers and additional work shifts and paying a lot of additional wages in exchange for increasing working hours.
He added that there is "a great shortage of materials used in this industry, as pumps, heaters and swimming pools that are erected over the ground have run out at times."
This boom in swimming pool trade highlights the impact of the health crisis on consumer habits for the benefit of companies that provide services to consumers while they are in their homes, at a time when the world is struggling to contain new outbreaks and in which some people avoid beaches, public swimming pools and lakes to spend their holidays at home.
Tyler Hermon, the director of sales at Bowls of Fun, Indianapolis, said his phone does not stop ringing, and that the company's sales now have increased by 43 percent compared to last year, and this is entirely due to people remaining in quarantine in their homes.
The same applies to Spain, a country known for its high summer temperatures, which imposes one of the most severe measures of public isolation in Europe to curb the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.
The Spanish company (Floydra), the largest manufacturer of swimming pool equipment in the world, had given some of its employees leave without pay after expecting a decrease in demand for its products, but they quickly returned them all to work and even needed to hire more workers.
In May, the company's products and production capacity ran out of the above-ground swimming pools, despite the recruitment of additional workers. Sales of the models, which cost around 1,300 euros ($ 1,531), jumped more than 50 percent in early July compared to the same period in 2019.
The sales of easy-to-install swimming pools produced by Leroy Merlin in Spain increased to more than 200 percent during the first six months of 2020 compared to the same period in the previous year.
In Germany, there has been an increase in the demand for home swimming pools over the past years, but it has witnessed "a noticeable intensity" since the outbreak of the Coruna epidemic, said a spokeswoman for the manufacturer of swimming pools Hornbach.