LR tourism agency notes economic toll of pandemic

Events and tax receipts plummeted for the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an annual report from the bureau.

In an executive summary to the report, bureau President and CEO Gretchen Hall called the tourism industry “one of the hardest hit economic sectors,” and said staff members of the tourism group pivoted during a year of extreme challenges.

“By mid-year we were settling into the reality that significant group business would not return and leisure travel would be reduced,” Hall wrote in the report released Thursday, adding that officials turned their focus to items in their control like workplace safety, internal capital projects and a retooled marketing effort “to target resilient travelers, feature safe activities, and inspire future visits.”

Collections on the prepared-food and lodging tax were down 19.1% last year, dropping from about $15 million in 2019 to $12 million in 2020, the lowest level since

2013, according to the report.

Total revenue for the bureau in 2020 was $15.6 million, with tax receipts responsible for 77% of the sum.

Over the past year, hotel occupancy citywide in Little Rock declined by nearly 29% compared with 2019. In the convention district, hotel occupancy declined by nearly 48% compared with the previous year, according to the annual report.

Likewise, the number of events at venues operated by the Convention and Visitors Bureau dropped precipitously in 2020.

Events at the Statehouse Convention Center declined from 160 in 2019 to 35.

Seventy-eight events were held at the Robinson Center (excluding internal meetings for the city), down from 243 in 2019. River Market events decreased from 139 in 2019 to 36 in 2020.

Those venues experienced 51 group postponements and 297 group cancellations, and the bureau put the economic impact in the millions of dollars, according to the report.

About 60% of event-driven staff members responsible for the bureau’s facility operations had a reduction in work, either through layoffs, furloughs or a transition from full-time to part-time employment, according to the report.

“The remaining team members worked through the challenges, managed an incredibly complicated booking calendar, and attended advanced training in event operations, sanitization, and managing COVID guidelines,” the report said.

Gina Gemberling, the bureau’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, said she had never seen a similar falloff in the number of events before the pandemic.

“This was something that hit our industry so hard,” she said by phone Friday.

When the outbreak hit in March, Gemberling said, officials thought that by the second half of the year, or the third or fourth quarter, things would start to pick up.

“Obviously that did not happen,” she said.

Since that time, there has been evidence of a small “bounce-back,” she said, with some events, meetings and conventions taking place at venues, though not as many as during a typical year. Gemberling cautioned that “it’s not going to be a quick recovery by any means.”

Staff members continued to sell and market the city during the pandemic and took advantage of the empty facilities to make improvements, such as painting and changing light fixtures, Gemberling said.

The year 2020 and the pandemic coincided with the bureau’s 50th anniversary, in May.

Although planned celebrations in recognition of the milestone were postponed last year, officials have planned to incorporate the anniversary celebration into a hospitality job fair the bureau will host in May, Gemberling said.