-
The half-moon shines high over the Clark Bridge and the calm waters of the Alton Marina last summer. Tourism advocates in Illinois this week called upon the state to create a plan for post-pandemic recovery for hotels, attractions and restaurants.
The half-moon shines high over the Clark Bridge and the calm waters of the Alton Marina last summer. Tourism advocates in Illinois this week called upon the state to create a plan for post-pandemic recovery for
The half-moon shines high over the Clark Bridge and the calm waters of the Alton Marina last summer. Tourism advocates in Illinois this week called upon the state to create a plan for post-pandemic recovery for hotels, attractions and restaurants.
The half-moon shines high over the Clark Bridge and the calm waters of the Alton Marina last summer. Tourism advocates in Illinois this week called upon the state to create a plan for post-pandemic recovery for
MARYVILLE — Officials from the hotel, restaurant and convention industries told a state Senate panel Thursday that they need a clear plan for how they will be allowed to reopen as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes.
Without a plan, they said, many will go out of business permanently.
“We need to know … a strategy, we need to know the metrics as we move forward because we cannot, we cannot lose another summer here in the state of Illinois,” Sam Toia, president and CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, told the state Senate’s newly-formed Tourism and Hospitality Committee during its first virtual hearing.
State Sen. Rachelle Crowe, D-Glen Carbon, vice-chair of the Senate Tourism and Hospitality Committee, said a strategic plan is needed to help Illinois’ businesses, hotels and restaurants recover from the pandemic.
“While I understand the importance of keeping residents safe, it has been difficult to watch local businesses suffer as residents cross our borders to support restaurants and shops in neighboring states,” she said. “Illinois has so much to offer, and I’m looking forward to discussing our state’s recovery plan to re-ignite our unique tourism and hospitality industries.”
Last month Cory Jobe, President/CEO of the Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau, said he expects a turnaround in the tourism industry will at least begin this year. The American Hotel & Lodging Association recently reported business travel is expected to be down 85 percent, compared to 2019, through April and then will only tick up slightly.
Travel for leisure will be the first to return, the report said, with 56 percent of consumers expecting to travel in 2021 — roughly the same as in an average year. Business and group travel is not expected to return to pre-pandemic travel levels for the next two years.
“We represent six counties and what’s good for us is that we are a second- or third-tier destination in terms of leisure travel,” Jobe said. “We anticipate a pretty good rebound this summer and fall because consumers are looking for a place for a road trip.
“We see vacation rentals and B and B (bed and breakfast) and those sorts of things coming back in the summer and the fall,” he said. “But we don’t see a full robust return to the 2018 or 2019 numbers until at least early 2024.”
In 2019 visitors spent $718.5 million in the Riverbend region which includes Madison, Jersey, Greene, Calhoun, Macoupin and Montgomery counties. The region received local tax receipts of $19.37 million from visitor spending in 2019 and $18.64 in 2018, according to the Illinois Department of Commerce’s Office of Tourism.
Currently, all of Illinois is under Phase 4 mitigations which limits private gatherings to no more than 50 people. Toia said many restaurants can handle larger numbers of people safely, and there should be a more specific plan to let bars, restaurants and hotels gradually move out of Phase 4 toward Phase 5 (ull reopening).
Michael Jacobson, president/CEO of the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association, said with no plan hotels risk losing not just another season but another year.
“Meeting planners are making their plans right now for events booked this summer and beyond,” he said. “Because of how long these planners book in advance, we cannot take a day-by-day approach to these restrictions. Otherwise, we are putting months and months of future business at risk of leaving our state. And once a meeting leaves Illinois, it becomes so much harder to convince that organizer to come back to our state.”
Jacobson said the statewide average occupancy rate for hotels in Illinois in December was only 27 percent — roughly half what it was a year earlier.
“It has become clear that we will be among the last industries to recover from this disaster,” he said. “In fact, we don’t anticipate a recovery to pre-pandemic levels until 2024 at the earliest. And that is assuming that the recovery accelerates here in the next couple of months.”
Capitol News Illinois contributed to this story.