A year after the state shutdown by COVID, Maine hotels and restaurants are hoping this will be a better year.
ROCKPORT, Maine – The parking lot looked full, but the hotel rooms remained empty. This has been the routine at the popular Samoset Resort in Rockport for weeks. The resort can donate much of its space to a vaccination clinic with Pen Bay Hospital and Maine Health as the resort is actually closed. The Samoset was closed at the end of December and reopened on April 30th.
“We’re looking for relief in 2021,” said longtime CEO Connie Russell.
“The vaccinations are cheap. Surely the governor’s office has released positive news by lifting some restrictions that will help our industry tremendously. “
Over the past year, hotels and resorts have lost a majority of their bookings for the year due to the COVID pandemic. Many workers were never hired, and most out-of-state trips couldn’t even get to Maine for months without quarantine or testing negative.
The hospitality industry was arguably Maine’s hardest hit, but Greg Dugal of the Hospitality Maine trade group agrees that this year is looking a lot better because people love to travel again.
“I would say I am a living and breathing example of pent-up demand. I can’t wait to go anywhere to be honest and I think a lot of people feel the same way. “
Dugal said most hotels and resorts are expecting a significant improvement in business.
At the Samoset, Russell said he sees this in the form of pre-booking rooms and also in the form of a return to the conference and meeting business that has been a large part of the Samoset’s income for decades.
“You are already booked. We may see them in May and reopen on April 30th, ”he said on Friday.
“Our repeated long-term Maine associations will be back, and we’re starting to have some other groups from around the country who have booked and are back this year, along with weddings.”
Dugal said bringing the wedding business back to Maine is “huge” for the hospitality industry as the state has become a popular wedding destination. A tremendous number of weddings were postponed in 2020, but both Dugal and Russell said many of them are back in operation for this year, along with new ones. Maine’s current COVID rules have no size restrictions on outdoor weddings.
Dugal predicted, “I think there will be a lot of tent rentals this summer.”
And he also said the return of the hospitality industry is being made more difficult by the return of the labor shortage these companies faced in the years before COVID. He said there were delays in visas for foreign workers and renewed reluctance by Mainers to fill many of these jobs.
