Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Pandemic hits Utah tourism industry hard
State can’t rely on European visitors, woos Californians
ST. GEORGE, Utah — Springtime hit Bryce Canyon with a cold shoulder.
In what is typically the coldest of Utah’s five national parks, warming weather usually blossoms with opportunities for adventure and exponential economic growth as people flock to the world-renown red rock hoodoos and dense wood.
But not this year.
Lance Syrett, general manager of Ruby’s Inn in Bryce Canyon City, leads one of the hardest-hit businesses in a tourism industry hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Personally, I had to go to the guy who helped train me when I started in hotels in 2003 and lay him off,” Syrett said. “You know, that broke my heart because he’s committed to this business and we consider him part of the family. And we had that story over and over again with a lot of our good people.”
Even with government assistance, Ruby’s Inn lost 46 percent of its revenue this year.
“COVID is still killing us. No one is being impacted more than tourism because we are selling ‘nonessential travel’ when the government and authorities are telling people not to do ‘nonessential travel,’ ” Syrett said.
In particular, the lack of international tourists affected Ruby’s Inn and other gateway community hotels.
In an average year, international visitors constitute up to one-quarter of all national park visitors and tend to stay longer as well as spend more money compared with domestic visitors, University of Utah senior tourism analyst Jennifer Leaver said.
Over 30 percent of the usual international visitors come from Canada, with China and Germany trailing. The Canada border has been closed since March 18.
And though domestic visitation to some Utah national parks increased
in the late summer, it’s not enough.
“International and out-of-state visitor spending creates economic impact in Utah as it contributes outside dollars to our state economy. Instate Utah visitor spending (e.g., Salt Lake residents spending money in Springdale) does not create economic impact, but rather recirculates Utah money within the state economy,” Leaver wrote in an email.
The impacts of this year on the tourism economy will be lasting.
“We are projecting that it will take several years to fully restore the Utah tourism economy,” Utah Office of Tourism managing director Vicki Varela said.
Effect on business
What does a 46 percent loss in revenue mean to Ruby’s Inn, exactly?
It means layoffs, delay of new equipment and furniture, keeping up with what demand exists with fewer resources and employees and now, extra supplies to keep up with CDC recommendations.
“Yeah, it’s not cheap trying to comply,” Syrett said. “I wish there was somebody sitting there with a big old check at the end of the rainbow, and we’ve gotten our checks from the government and whatnot, but man, it’s still not enough.”
Syrett, as well as most of the tourism industry in Southern Utah, makes most of his profit in the summer. Because of the lack of visitors, however, Syrett has had to drop his rates to be competitive, which means that even though he might fill his hotel, he’s making only half the profit he would in a normal year.
“There’s kind of a day in April where finally we stop bleeding cash and we start making cash because we made it through the wintertime. And that day never happened,” Syrett said.
Tour companies and providers, like LeBus, have also seen nearly all of their tours canceled and lost up to millions of dollars.
Dennis Copyak, vice president and owner of LeBus, said last year it did about 500 national park tours. This year, it did six.
“We’re moving forward with all the customers we have,” Copyak said. “It’s pretty ugly to look out my office window and see 90 buses parked.”
In all, the company will have lost 15 percent of its revenue this year, a deficit of $10 million.
Hoteliers across Southern Utah have borne the brunt of COVID-19, even at the biggest park in Utah: Zion National Park.
Breck Dockstader, president of Cliffrose Lodge and Gardens in Springdale, was hit with $1 million worth of cancellations in the spring.
“A lot of that million dollars was inbound travel from Europe. There have been years where we had an 80 percent occupancy of foreign travelers. You can’t understate the value of European travelers,” Dockstader said.
California to the rescue
But there was one saving grace for Utah and hoteliers: Californians.
In response to the lack of international travelers, Utah tourism industry leaders shifted their marketing toward domestic crowds.
Greater Zion launched the “Find Your Space” campaign, stressing that Utah was still beautiful, still had wide-open spaces and people could spend their newfound time discovering their own backyards, and it worked.
“We didn’t force-feed anything, we just said we’re here and it’s beautiful,” said Kevin Lewis, director of the Greater Zion Convention and Tourism Office. “You can keep some sort of normalcy in your lives.”
In 2019, 11 percent of all domestic tourism came from California, but locals anecdotally think this year has far surpassed that.
Owners like Dockstader are grateful the Californians came to Southern Utah this summer.
“Without L.A., we wouldn’t have climbed out of it like we did,” he said.