Arkansas director of tourism Travis Napper said during the opening session of the gubernatorial conference on tourism on Tuesday (March 2) that while tourism has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020, the outlook for the second half of 2021 looks bright.

“I understand how tough the past year has been. … The good news is that we are already recovering and will continue to do so. I have no doubt that we will return stronger than before, ”said Napper.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Arkansas Tourism pulled advertisements to avoid posting confusing or conflicting information. The objectives were changed to allocate advertising dollars where they would have the greatest impact. The department switched to virtual and online presence through the Arkansas at Home portal on arkansas.com, which included zoom backgrounds, virtual tours and more, Napper said. They also revealed Arkansas Ready for Travel on the website, which will continue throughout 2021. These changes earned Arkansas Tourism a national award for excellence in web development, he said.

“Tourism is about more than just traveling. It’s about quality of life, economic stability and jobs, ”said Napper. “The good news is that all efforts have worked. Although we realized that many parts of the state were negatively impacted, many places in the state had record visits. It turned out that Arkansas was well positioned for a pandemic. Our wide open spaces across the state provided plenty of opportunities for travelers to have fun and gain experience despite the pandemic. “

The bad news is that the 2% Arkansas property tax took a hit in 2020. At the end of the 2020 fiscal year, tax revenues fell by 9.5% and at the end of the year by 19%.

A BETTER SUMMER
Even so, the state fared better than others across the country. Only six states fared better than Arkansas in 2020, according to a tourism economics study, he said. The study also found that 81% of American travelers say they want to travel within the next six months, up from 65% as of late January and the highest reported level since last March, Napper said.

“With last year’s challenges, every person involved in Arkansas tourism is a Tourist Person of the Year. You showed grit last year, and grit is exactly what you need to move tourism back to health, ”said Governor Asa Hutchinson during the session.

Travis Napper, Arkansas Director of Tourism

Kaitlin DiPaola, senior economist at Tourism Economics, said the situation with the pandemic in general has been dire in every way, but people should know that it has improved and has improved quite dramatically over the past six weeks, which is partly due to the administration of Covid vaccinations is due.

“We’re well on our way to vaccinating 40% to 50% of the US population by June, and this sets the stage for a completely different summer than last year,” DiPaola said.

Even if more and more people receive the vaccine, uncertainty and fear are high. A tourism economics study found that travel confidence was still low on February 17th. Less than 50% of the population say they feel safe outside their community.

“However, we believe that we are creating the conditions for a significant recovery in travel,” said DiPaola.

“SIGNIFICANT EFFECTS” FROM VACCINATION
Criteria that lead to this belief are economy, interest rates, fiscal incentives and savings. DiPaola said they wholeheartedly expect the labor department to intensify in the spring and summer with a labor market recovery that is very different from what it was after the great financial crisis.

“We assume that by summer we will be back to the level we were (before the pandemic),” she said.

She also noted that interest rates are currently near zero, which has a number of positive effects on the economy. The federal government has also spent over $ 5 trillion on fiscal incentives “to fight the downturn,” she said, noting that it is a “massive catalyst for economic recovery at all levels, particularly the leisure market.”

Tourism economics studies show that higher-income households have about $ 1.6 trillion in savings that can be spent on travel once travel opens up, she said.

“When will we recover? There is no avoiding the difficult first quarter. But look into the second quarter and beyond. Then we expect the vaccination values ​​to have a significant influence and create the conditions for recreation in free time, ”said DiPaola. “We will continue to live with COVID-19, but it will not have the same devastating impact on the (tourism) industry as it did last summer.”

In the next six months, households will travel differently, DiPaola said. A tourism economics study shows that 30% of households said they would reduce the number of trips they travel, 25% say they will travel within the US rather than internationally, and 15% choose rural destinations over urban destinations. The good news is that only 15% plan to cancel trips in the next six months, she said.

Looking at information from the US Travel Association, DiPaola said Tourism Economics expects vacation travel to return to 2019 levels by 2022. The expectation is that vacation trips will return to 90% of value by the end of the year, she said. Business and group travel is a different story. Studies show that business and group trips normalize somewhat in autumn and winter, although they recover more slowly than individual trips. It will take until 2024 to get back to 2019 levels, DiPaola said. Still, travel experts expect a much better second half of the year than the first.

The historic primacy of SARS has shown that Hong Kong and Singapore fully recovered in terms of international travel within 14 to 17 months of resolving the crisis, DiPaola said. The tourism economy expects the same in the United States after the COVID pandemic is resolved.

“We can see that. Longwoods International data shows that 80% of households plan to travel within the next six months. You make plans and get ready, ”said DiPaola.

“Destructive Crisis”
But the impact of the pandemic has been huge and there needs to be advocacy in Arkansas to aid recovery, she said. The Arkansas recreation and hospitality industry was the leader in employment in Arkansas. Employment in the industry has increased 21% over the past decade, while government employment has increased overall 10%, she said.

“Our industry has never seen such a devastating crisis,” she said. “The leisure and hospitality industry has been a driving force for the past ten years. In order for Arkansas to continue growing, we need to restore this industry. “

Aside from mining and logging, which have seen 17% job losses since March 2020, no other industry has been hit as hard as travel, data from Tourism Economics showed. Since February, leisure and hospitality industries have lost 12% of their jobs compared to the previous year. About 40% of all jobs lost in Arkansas last year were in the hospitality industry.

“This leads to the conclusion that a recreation from travel is necessary for a recreation in Arkansas. It is important that policymakers support the travel industry and it is urgently needed for recovery, ”DiPaola said.

Napper said that once travel and tourism have fully recovered, the entire Arkansas economy will recover.

“We have to be honest with the reality that some may not recover, but we believe many will,” said Napper. “We are ready to return to a new sense of normalcy. How do we get there? In the same way, we have persevered and mastered the challenges in the past – with Grit. “

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