Galveston’s tourism season gets rolling despite virus
‘COMPLETELY BOOKED’: Isle fears surge in cases but welcomes visitors
GALVESTON — A loose line of customers snaked down the walkway to The Spot, waiting to sit down and enjoy marvelous views of the Gulf of Mexico. A “Social Distancing 101” sign plastered on the side of the two-story restaurant explained protocol, and a hostess wearing a mask greeted customers.
“We’re making sure that we’ve got people properly spaced, putting stickers and lines on the ground so that we can properly space and ask (customers) to keep a safe distance,” said Javier Velez, The Spot’s general manager. “Basically every other table has been closed. We all understand that that’s what we need to do.”
This is Galveston’s new normal approaching Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kickoff of the island’s tourist season. Three weeks
into Texas’ phased reopening after the coronavirus outbreak, Galveston’s tourism economy has boomed once again, a hopeful sign for an industry that sustains over 11,000 jobs and attracts more than 7 million visitors a year on average, not to mention crucial sales tax revenue for the city.
Short-term rentals were flooded with bookings the first day the state reopened, with hotels seeing a sharp uptick as well. Beaches that sat dormant for weeks during the state’s stay-at-home period are now teeming with families and couples, some of whom strictly abide by social distancing requirements while others flout them.
Public health experts also caution that while Galveston County hasn’t seen a major spike in coronavirus cases since the state reopened, there has been a slight increase in infections in the last week. With as many as 500,000 visitors expected to flood Galveston over the three-day weekend and bars now reopening across the state at limited capacity, the potential for a second surge looms.
“We’re kind of preparing for (a second surge) to occur, it hasn’t occurred yet and we’ve had some pretty robust weekends here the last few weekends,” said Brian Maxwell, Galveston’s city manager.
300-mile ‘drive market’
Dr. Philip Keiser, Galveston County’s local health authority, strikes a note of caution. He said while the county last week reported its lowest number of cases since the outset of the pandemic, with 22, cases began to increase this week, with 38 reported as of Friday. He mentioned particular concern about a recent study that found that traffic to nonessential businesses has jumped especially in Texas and Florida.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an increase in cases and a statistically significant increase in cases,” Keiser said. “I’m not sure it’s gonna be big enough where something needs to be done about it, but time will tell.”
Maxwell is primarily encouraged by the marked increase in tourist traffic on the island over the last three weeks. Even with cruise ships — a major pillar of
Galveston’s tourism industry — sidelined through at least July, Maxwell believes the island is poised to attract many visitors from the Houston-Galveston region, and anywhere in Texas within driving range.
“There’s not a lot of people flying or going places so Galveston being next to such a large center of people like Houston, we’re getting a majority of folks coming down and taking their vacations here because they can’t get to the East Coast, West Coast, Hawaii, Florida, places like that,” Maxwell said.
Michael Woody, chief tourism officer for Galveston’s Convention & Visitors Bureau, said market research indicates that people are looking for outdoor and beach experiences for vacations because it is easier to socially distance in open spaces. The bureau considers the Galveston “drive market” to be anyone within 300 miles of the island.
“Even from the first weekend of the beaches being open back in the beginning of May, we had over 10,000 cars at our beach parks that were down here on the island enjoying the opportunity to be outside and on the beach,” Woody said.
Hotel occupancy rates this month, while still less than completely full, are already outpacing last year’s rate. The visitors bureau reported 70 percent of hotels were occupied so far in May, compared with 66 percent in 2019.
Short-term rentals are also seeing a major boost. While March and April are typically the prime booking months for shortterm rentals, Mary Branum, president of the Short Term Rental Owners Association of Galveston, said reservations “took off” as soon as Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the state’s stay-athome order on May 1.
“We’re completely booked,” Branum said. “Not just Memorial
Day weekend, we are basically full for the summer.”
Claire Reiswerg, co-owner of Sand ’N Sea Properties, which manages more than 150 properties mostly on the island’s West End, said that while customers were certainly eager to book vacations — they are fully booked — they came armed with many questions about sanitary practices. Reiswerg said the company has been more strict about check-in and checkout times at their properties because of the “deep clean” its housekeepers are doing between guests.
“We retrained our inspectors, who go in after our housekeepers because we have to make sure, down to the doorknobs and lockbox, everything’s disinfected,” Reiswerg said, adding that they use a commercial laundry service that cleans everything at high temperatures to ensure it is sanitized.
‘Personal responsibility’
As for the island’s beaches, Maxwell said the city won’t be directing officers to enforce social distancing and that every access point on the island would be open through the long weekend.
Peter Davis, chief of the island’s beach patrol, which had been tasked with ensuring social distancing, said they simply don’t have the capacity to do so with the expected volume of visitors. The visitors bureau has commissioned an airplane to fly along the beachfront trailing a banner that says “6 Feet Saves Lives.”
“On a weekend like this, it’s very important for people to assume that personal responsibility, do their own social distancing, wear their masks, wash their hands, all the stuff that (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) keeps trying to get us all to do,” Davis said.
Keiser is hopeful that the images and viral videos that emerged from Bolivar Peninsula’s “Jeep Weekend” last week, where thousands flocked to the beaches for a weekend-long party aggressively defying social distancing requirements, won’t happen over the three-day weekend.
“It was really people with a sense of invincibility,” Keiser said. “You could see there was no social distancing at all, no attempt at it at all. When you see that, it’s worrisome and we’ll see what the effect of it is.”