Lincoln City fills with thousands of visitors every summer.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed this in spring 2020. Health and safety restrictions enforced restrictions on businesses, events, and social gatherings. Now that vaccinations are on the rise, Lincoln County and the state are slowly moving towards more normal routines, which means a huge spike in local tourism.

“I think it’s going to be one of the best seasons we’ve seen,” said Lori Arce-Torres, executive director of the Lincoln City Chamber of Commerce. “People really want to get out. You have been locked up and want to go back to the beach. They tell us they have to go to the beach because of their mental health. “

Arce-Torres predicts traffic in Lincoln City, which is becoming a destination for many, will increase by between 40% and 50% this summer.

“A lot of people are still nervous about flying and can’t leave the country, so Lincoln City is definitely a destination for them,” she said.

It’s not just a hunger to be on the sandy beach by the sea, according to Arce-Torres.

“People really want to get out and the hiking trails in the area are becoming one of the most popular destinations,” she said.

With the increase in local tourism, there are traffic and employment problems.

“Traffic comes to a standstill on busy weekends,” said Acre-Torres. “And this summer we are sure that it will be commonplace here.”

She adds that local businesses are struggling to recruit full-time workers.

“For some, this may not be the experience it has had in the past, but business people are doing their best to attract the staff necessary to meet customer needs,” she said.

COVID roller coaster ride

Ed Dreistadt, the director of Explore Lincoln City (ELC), the city’s tourism division, said the city has been on a COVID-19 roller coaster since last March.

“We have grown from our main industry, which disappeared during the short-term lodging ban, to an unexpected surge in the number of guests coming to town,” he said. “The impact on businesses has been uneven as properties lost the spring break last year but then saw higher occupancy rates than they did in 2019 after the ban was lifted. Restaurants and bars have had a difficult time as they are the industry hardest hit by indoor eating restrictions and hours of operation that are changing due to the pandemic. “

Tricity said Lincoln City proved both resilient and happy during the pandemic.

“We don’t depend on an airport, we don’t have a convention center to fill, we don’t depend on business travel and we don’t have a large number of international travelers who suddenly stop coming,” he said. “During the pandemic, people still wanted to travel within the restrictions in force and the most attractive destinations were places they found uncrowded, preferably small towns with outdoor activities with beaches high on the wish list.”

Lincoln City has checked all the boxes, according to Tricity.

“Also, many of our competitors went offline because people couldn’t or wouldn’t get on a plane or cruise ship,” he said. “The result was a much, much better picture of tourism and income than any of us expected.”

Lincoln City measures its tourist seasons based on reported rental property income, which the city uses to calculate temporary room tax.

“The impact of the March-June 2020 short-term placement ban has been dramatic, but from July we saw a rebound that we continue to enjoy,” he said. “By the end of March 2021, we are 77% ahead of 2020. Given the closure of short-term accommodations last year, we are confident that we will see numbers like this or higher in the next report by June. If you compare the numbers with 2019, before COVID-19, we are still way ahead of our last “normal” year. “

Tricity said when the short-term housing ban hit, tourism budgets were frozen, all outdoor advertising ceased, and it operated on the assumption that the money for the temporary room tax that is used to fund Explore Lincoln City was simply not there.

“My department switched from paid advertising to what we could do through social media, internal videos, and public relations,” he said. “Our goal was to maintain Lincoln City awareness during the pandemic without explicitly inviting people to visit. At the beginning of the pandemic, we worked out a strategy to hold out. “

Tricity said the core effort was an aggressive public relations campaign in partnership with Lawrence PR that identified the city’s good news for Portland, which showed Lincoln City residents and businesses to be caring, resilient and innovative.

The suddenly-closed Lincoln City Culinary Center continued to hold cooking demonstrations, only this time from Donna Riana’s home kitchen and on video, including highlighting the takeaway options at local restaurants in a weekly series called Dashboard Dining.

Dreistadt said, with support from Lincoln City Events & Promotions, the culinary hub has put together a number of city-wide food promotions, starting with the Secret Takeout Menu and most recently a Cinco de Mayo promotion highlighting the city’s Mexican restaurants and offering places to where people could eat.

“When we learned that COVID-19 had taken North Lincoln Fire & Rescues away from running some of their key fundraising drives for their Christmas toy drive, we organized another group of restaurants around Merry Meals where you could upgrade to a meal that a toy, ”said Tricity. “The toy would of course be bought by the fire department and given to a child in need.”

ELC’s early efforts focused on delivering virtual vacation experiences in a campaign called “Looking Forward to Lincoln City.” The city’s popular beach glass bauble discovery event, Finders Keepers, has been canceled, but a version called Finders Keepers Home Edition has been created where guests can virtually find swimmers. https://www.oregoncoast.org/home-edition/

“With a drastically reduced advertising budget, we have only sent educational messages to the people of the city, messages that encourage people to support local businesses, to contact guests before they leave the house, to encourage responsible behavior during visits and Safe activities suggested is where we are currently, ”Tricity said. “We expanded our social media platforms, presented our companies, took breathtaking pictures and learned to produce videos.”

Tricity said ELC had safe experiences during the pandemic that are likely to persist, including the Lincoln City Community Center’s staging of a drive-in theater and the Bijou Theater that was so popular that theater owners Keith and Betsy Altomare developed a summer series last year, it continues this summer. The ELC repurposed Kiwanis for the Pixiefest grant, which enabled the group to create an entirely new iteration of the Spooky Spectacular as a safe drive-through experience in the lower parking deck of Lincoln City Outlets.

“The Devils Lake Neighborhood Association was awarded an ELC grant to improve their 2020 fireworks show that was not used,” Tricity said. “We gave them OK to repurpose it to have a boat-in concert, the live music equivalent of the drive-in movies that were proving to be a hit. Unfortunately, the wildfire disrupted and it was canceled. Funding has been retained and has since grown into a series that will start this summer. It’s going to be so much fun, I’m sure it will survive COVID-19. “

Lincoln City’s reputation management is an important part, according to Dreistadt.

“Everyone who lives here knows that the city is made up of wonderful, caring people,” he said. “We showed this side of Lincoln City to the outside world and sowed seeds that I believe will pay off for years to come. We have a story to tell about the people and companies here that we will continue to tell in the future. “

Dreistadt said one of the unknowns about the summer head is that as travel opens up, competitors that have previously been closed are also opening up.

“When people get familiar with flying again, we might see less demand for nearby destinations,” he said. “As we watch the COVID-19 numbers drop as more and more people are vaccinated, we are preparing to restore with a resumption of advertising as well as an ongoing promotion with the pre-purchased goods and services through the Invest & Program .

According to Tristadt, tourism in Lincoln City generates a third of a billion dollars annually.

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