Historic Triangle leaders discuss virus’ effects on the summer tourism season

Put succinctly by Scott Stevens, James City County administrator, the past summer tourism season in the Greater Williamsburg area was “bad to ugly” as major attractions, including Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens, were closed part, if not all, of the June through August term.

Andrew Trivette, Williamsburg city manager, echoed those sentiments: For the businesses involved in the hospitality industry, the summer was “agonizingly devastating and continues to be.”

Outside of the impact of the loss of visitors for attractions, Neil Morgan, York County administrator, said lodgings were the most severely impacted area, where hotels routinely found they had vacancies in the 65%-70% range.

Local officials want to be “cautiously optimistic,” Trivette said, but September and early October indicators showed few major tourism improvements compared with 2019 figures. The localities also are each faced with different kinds of challenges in balancing their books due to losses in tourism-based revenue. So are the attractions.

For Busch Gardens, which reopened in August on a restricted basis with special events limited to 1,000 persons per event, it was an effort to put its name and brand forward, explained Kevin Lembke, Busch Gardens president.

“The limited events are here, but clearly from a broader standpoint, our business is just a tiny fraction of what we normally would be.

“I’ve talked to my colleagues and we’re hanging in there on weekends,” he added. “We’re making really difficult decisions to put ourselves in place that when things get close to normal we’ll be well positioned.”

The decision for limited 1,000 person weekend events, Lembke said, was developed here. It was “some innovative thinking” in line with Virginia’s COVID-19 restrictions, he explained in collaboration with the corporate team in Orlando, Florida. “Frankly, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in some pretty difficult circumstances.”

After being closed for about three months, Colonial Williamsburg reopened on June 14, and through the end of September ticketed admission “was just under half that of the same period in 2019,” explained Joseph Straw, senior public relations manager. September did show a small admissions rebound.

Straw pointed to Colonial Williamsburg’s webpages, which offer specific details on holiday schedules and special ticket prices through Dec. 31.

Likewise, at the Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, operations of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, summer visitation after the facilities reopened in late June showed paid visitation “half of what we normally see,” according to Frank Stovall, deputy executive director of administration for the foundation.

In September, the museums saw an increase in paid admission, Stovall said, with Labor Day holiday weekend visitation at about 90% of the norm.

However, October is routinely supported by school groups from across the nation scheduling field trips. Those programs are lower than usual, and so is October visitation.

Statistics for the three localities show them tracking nearly together in terms of lodgings tax revenue for the summer. Williamsburg showed lodgings down 86% in June since the same time last year, 69% in July and 64% in August. York County lodgings tax revenue was down 77% in

June since the same time last year, 69% in July and 73% in August. James City lodgings tax revenue was down 66% in June since the same time last year, 45% in July and 73% in August.

Food and Beverage tax revenue for the localities ranged from a decrease of just 36% in July in Williamsburg to a high of a 58% decrease in James City County in June.

Stevens said the county’s financial picture is not being strained. “We adopted a conservative budget based upon COVID-expected impacts. We worry about our small businesses. They don’t traditionally have a lot of reserve (financial) capacity and there are many, I’m sure in trouble.

“We just all hope by spring to be back to a robust feeling.”

Financially, from a Williamsburg city perspective, “we deliberately made a worse-case scenario and based on that our numbers have not been that bad,” Trivette said. In reality, however, “the city routinely has between a $1.6 and $2.3 million surplus at the end of the fiscal year.”

At the end of June, the city had a $600,000 budget deficit for the year.

“That’s a significant loss of revenue,” he added. “And at this point, there is still a grim outlook.”