Rural destinations ‘ready to reopen’ but fear virus

When the first coronavirus shutdowns were announced in March, hoteliers in the Appalachian town of Gadsden, Ala., said they did not want to host visitors from other states.

So, Hugh Stump, executive director of Greater Gadsden Area Tourism, told them that as private businesses, they could deny lodging to people for reasons other than age, race, religion and other protected categories.

“If somebody’s coming from New York, and you’re worried about New York, you don’t have to allow them in your hotel,” Stump advised.

Rural destinations like Gadsden shunned out-oftowners at the outset of the pandemic, but now they’re eager for visitors as states lift some stay-at-home restrictions ahead of Memorial Day. At the same time, communities are weighing their economic needs against their infection fears.

Rural areas typically have a weaker health care infrastructure, with far-flung hospitals and fewer doctors. Nationwide, rural residents tend to be poorer, sicker and more vulnerable to infection than city dwellers and suburbanites.

Ready or not, the influx of visitors is coming.

“There’s no question about it; the great outdoors, the rural regions are where people are going to go” for Memorial Day weekend, said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “I expect that Mount Rushmore, the Dakotas, are going to get massive amounts of travelers.”

The Gadsden area is just what travelers will be looking for, Stump said. It has the amenities of a larger town without the concentration of people (Gadsden’s population is about 35,000). A hotel room runs about $100 a night.

People can kayak and fish along the Coosa River or bike up local mountain trails. Stump expects interest in Gadsden’s smalltown amenities to persist throughout the year.

“Do you want to fly to New York City and go to a play in six months? Probably not,” Stump said.

Memorial Day weekend typically launches the summer travel season, and Americans are sick of being cooped up, according to travel industry analysts. But expect travel to be spotty depending on a state’s status for lifting business restrictions, Dow said.

For the first time in 20 years, AAA did not issue its annual Memorial Day travel forecast because the pandemic has undermined the accuracy of its economic data.

Dow expects moderate travel in states like California,

whose stay-at-home order remains in place. People will likely travel to parts of the Midwest and states that never had stay-at-home orders in place, such as the Dakotas and Wyoming.

Americans also will travel to vacation spots in states that lifted orders prior to the holiday, such as the Florida beaches and parts of Texas and Georgia, Dow said. And people will be drawn to national parks, which are coordinating with local and state officials to reopen in phases.

Since the beginning of March, the pandemic has resulted in more than $157 billion in losses for the U.S. travel industry, according to an analysis by Tourism

Economics.

In the week ending May 9, most states and territories experienced at least an 80% decline in year-over-year weekly travel spending, with Puerto Rico (95%) and Washington, D.C., and Hawaii (both 96%) tracking the greatest losses.

On a recent Thursday evening, travelers could zip through check-in and security in Southwest Terminal A at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Cheerful airport workers greeted lone travelers.

Besides a few women seated together at a oncebustling bar, people sat scattered outside their gates prior to departure and avoided eye contact.