Tourism, hospitality sectors seek help
The tourism and hospitality sector has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing sharp declines in business that will be slow to recover without additional state action, industry leaders told lawmakers on Friday.
A parade of speakers outlined a dire economic picture at a Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development Committee hearing aimed at learning about the pandemic’s impact.
The widespread job losses and drop in spending, they warned, could take years to rebound, impacting workers across the state as well as tax revenues.
Industry groups representing restaurants, hotels and motels, cultural organizations, event venues, and tourism promotion urged the panel to boost spending on recovery grants, advertisement programs aimed at encouraging travel to Massachusetts, and support for regional tourism councils.
“We’re not going to be able to wish, pray and hope our way out of this pandemic,” said Martha Sheridan, president of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“It’s just not going to happen.
“The only way we’re going to get out of it is if we remain competitive and invest strategically in tourism promotion,” she also added.
The Baker administration has distributed more than $650 million in relief grants to about 14,400 businesses so far, and cultural nonprofits received almost $10 million through a separate grant program in January.
The federal government also launched a new $16 billion grant program on Thursday for shuttered venues, aiming to assist live venue operators, theatrical producers, live performing arts organization operators, museum operators, movie theater operators, and talent representatives affected by mandatory closures.
Industry leaders want the Legislature to supplement those programs.
A top priority several cited is a bill that would direct at least $200 million from the billions in federal stimulus funding Massachusetts received to help cultural organizations recover. The funding would be distributed by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in the form of grants to both nonprofit and forprofit cultural organizations that could be used for payroll, rent and other expenses, adapting programming to cope with COVID, and investing in technology and infrastructure for safe reopening.
Through Friday, 51 lawmakers had cosponsored the bill, which was authored by Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development Committee Co-chair Sen. Edward Kennedy of Lowell.
Another major change many said they want to see is a clearer timeline for business restrictions. Knowing when allowable gathering limits will increase would encourage many tipped workers in the industry to return to the workforce, speakers said, and would give event venues enough lead time to ramp up operations.
“If those employees don’t see that gathering numbers are going up and in fact the number of people they’ll be serving is increasing, which will have a direct corresponding increase on their wages, the desire to return to work for them might be less,” Sheridan said.
They also called on the Baker administration to release $4 million for regional tourism councils included in an economic development bill Gov. Charlie Baker signed in January. Those councils, Massachusetts Lodging Association President Paul Sacco said, play an important role in converting pent-up consumer demand into spending in Massachusetts.
“Unless we do something as you heard from the RTCS, we’re going to have a missed opportunity June through September to capture some of this business,” he said.
While the industry has been hit hard across the country, the damage is particularly pronounced in Massachusetts.
Leisure and hospitality, as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, lost 30% of its jobs from February 2020 to February 2021, a far greater share than any of the nine other categories.