By Fiona St. Pierre, Granite State News Collaborative
The pandemic has impacted every level of tourism in New Hampshire, from leaf peeping to the 2021 ski season. Visitors are faced with state regulations both in New Hampshire and often in their home state as well.
It’s because of these challenges that Lori Harnois, New Hampshire Tourism Director, says, “The Division is not forecasting travel or spending for the 2020-21 winter season. Similar to summer and fall, due to COVID-19, there are many unknowns and variables with the potential to impact visitation and visitor spending, making it difficult to project those figures.”
FOLIAGE SEASON
When it comes to the fall season, Harnois says that the data isn’t in to truly understand how New Hampshire’s tourism marketing impacted visitation.
“Our marketing this fall was quite different than years past,” she notes. “We promoted the state as a foliage destination to visitors from New England, where there were no quarantine restrictions. Anecdotally, there was steady visitation to the state during the months of September and October.”
The reach of canceled festivals reached across the state. Ginnie Lupi, director of the NH State Council on the Arts, says, “The pandemic has significantly impacted cultural tourism throughout New Hampshire. Most performance venues have been closed for the duration and expect to remain so for at least several more months, and museums that did reopen are seeing few visitors.”
Large festivals such as the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Annual Fair and the NH Highland Games, which draw visitors from around the world, and regional arts events, which attract attendees from surrounding states, did not occur in 2020.
Looking forward, Lupi continues, “Now that the vaccines are being distributed, we are hopeful that by the summer of 2021, New Hampshire’s cultural activity and related tourism will rebound.”
THE GREAT OUTDOORS
With festivals shuttered and venues closed, people all over New Hampshire and New England were looking for safe activities.
New Hampshire State Parks Public Information Officer Brent Wucher says that “2020 was definitely a year that started off with a lot of uncertainty for NH State Parks.”
Photo Courtesy of VisitNH.gov
At first, he notes, they were looking at the possibility that parks may not open at all for the 2020 summer season. But by mid-March, Wucher says they saw record numbers of hikers at popular locations such as Mt. Monadnock.
Wucher points out that Mt. Monadnock ran the pilot program for the advanced day-use reservation system that was later rolled out to all the other parks for the 2020 season.
“It worked well as a way to avoid large numbers of hikers on the mountain on busy weekends,” Wucher notes.
Late season openings and capacity limits also impacted the parks. As Wucher points out, this had a large effect since “NH State parks is unique in the sense that it is operationally self-funded. The park system relies on fees to run the parks, and not all parks collect fees or generate positive revenue.” He notes that fees and donations go directly to supporting the state’s parks system.
“From the beginning of the season, we knew how important our parks would be to people as they would need an outlet and a place to find respite,” notes Wucher, adding that Gov. Sununu’s intention was to keep the state parks open to provide outdoors access that would be safe and provide a healthy outlet.
“What better place to spend time outdoors and know that you can practice social distancing than a park?” Wucher says.
It’s a statement that is backed up by those visiting the State Parks.
In most years, visitation to parks is mainly during the weekends and holidays, he notes. “2020 was different as we often saw equal visitation on weekdays as we saw on the weekends. Camping saw record numbers despite the late-season startup.”
The park season year typically ends with Labor Day weekend, but for 2020 Wucher says the parks were kept open as long as the weather cooperated.
“This resulted in a fantastic fall for us and our visitors. On a positive note, the pandemic has brought attention and renewed interest to our parks systems, and we hope this will continue into the future,” Wucher says.
‘TROUBLE-INN’ TIMES
Even with the increased visitation rates for September and October, local and business travel was down compared to previous years, says Eric Lorimer of the Monadnock Travel Council. Lorimer and his wife, Pam, also own the Jack Daniels Motor Inn, whose revenues for 2020 are down about 30%. He also mentions, some smaller lodging properties in the Monadnock Region decided to close in March/April 2020 with plans to reopen in January 2021. However, many may be pushing that out until later in 2021.
“Thanksgiving and Christmas are pretty busy for us, but we had the quietest Thanksgiving ever because people just couldn’t or wouldn’t travel,” says Lorimer.
New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association President and CEO Mike Somers says that the data reflected through only November 2020 shows New Hampshire occupancy is down 32.7% —slightly better than the national average of down 33.2%. And better than the greater New England region, which is down 40%. Room revenue is down about 40% as well, which is better than the national average of down 49%; the New England region is down 57%.
All of these numbers, says Somers, paints a grim picture for the entire industry.
“In 2020 through November, in the state, the loss in sales to the hospitality and tourism industry was somewhere north of 775 million dollars, which is a loss of about 70 million dollars in rooms and meals tax,” he notes. “So that’s a significant amount of money both for the industry and for the state.”
Somers notes that as reopening started to occur in the spring, outdoor dining was a critical component. “We didn’t recover fully, but we almost got back to break-even but, not quite. We got close a couple of months in July and August.”
Now that winter has arrived — and outdoor dining is out of the question — those numbers have “just fallen off a cliff,” Somers says. “We’ve got folks who told us that they were down, 40 to 60% in December, which is just a huge amount of money for some of these businesses. And keep in mind, the restaurant industry alone operates on three to five percent profit margins. So, if you’re down 40 to 50 percent, you know, and you’re not even close to making money, you’re losing money every hour that you’re open.”
Somers hopes that this next round of stimulus funding will help businesses weather the storm. However, it’s been the support of local communities that have made the biggest difference, he says.
“We have certainly appreciated, throughout this mess, the support of the local communities. Folks that have purchased take out, delivery orders, those that have been kind enough to dine in our restaurants, take the interstate trips, and go to B&Bs or an inn … Those little trips have been hugely important in helping these businesses get to where they are, and we would certainly ask that folks continue to consider doing those again for the next couple of months,” says Somers.
SKI SEASON
The leaves are long off the trees, and only the bravest among us are camping right now. So, most New Englanders are looking to the slopes. However, ski resorts throughout the state and New England are facing a bevy of restrictions. But that doesn’t mean skiers or resorts are not excited for this winter season.
“New Hampshire ski areas are looking forward to being open this winter, and based on the enthusiasm we saw for outdoor activities and experiences this summer, we expect demand to be high,” says Jessyca Keeler, president of Ski New Hampshire.
Photo Courtesy of VisitNH.gov
That said, there’s no question that the 2020/21 ski season will be different for skiers and riders than any previous season, she notes.
“The pandemic has impacted the season at Crotched in the way skiers and riders experience the mountain this winter,” says Crotched Mountain Communications Manager Bonnie MacPherson.
The safety of guests, staff, and the community is the ski area’s top priority, she notes, adding that CDC-approved face coverings are mandatory, and there are some new protocols in place to promote safe social distancing, including a reservation system that allows the ski area to manage the number of skiers on the mountain on any given day.
“While I couldn’t begin to speculate what the future holds, our intention is to operate Crotched like we do every year — running all the same lifts and opening up as much terrain as we can as quickly as we can. And we plan to open every day through the season’s end in late March,” says MacPherson.
Since Crotched is part of Vail Resorts, a publicly-traded company, MacPherson could not speak on the specific number of skier visits. She did pass on that the resort is “pleased” with the number of season passes sold this year – compared with previous years – and with the turnout of skiers and riders visiting the mountain – especially considering the challenges of living through a global pandemic.
OUTLOOK FOR 2021?
Overall, the future is yet to be determined. This is an unprecedented time without any data to base predictions on, and as Lori Harnois points out, “this year has not been like anything New Hampshire’s tourism industry has ever experienced.”
She adds that despite the challenges, many New Hampshire businesses pivoted and adjusted their traditional business models to meet state guidelines and safely reopen their doors to welcome visitors during the summer and fall. That effort continues now into the winter season.
The industry should know how the winter fared come late spring or early summer. Right now, the best we can do is hope for snow.
This article is being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.