Let’s Talk About Tourism April 2022
By Martin Owen
For the last couple of months, I’ve been talking about the management of tourism and how the people who promote tourism to an area have to mix established visitors with new travelers and also balance numbers of tourists with how much they spend in an area. A healthy level in both of those parameters keeps the visitors and the locals happy.
Of course, tourism management doesn’t just lie with the industry professionals in the tourist boards and other marketing organizations. Many others have vested and relevant interests. Local residents are the most important group. Tourism contributes hugely to local economies bringing not only jobs but also encourages visitors spend money in stores and contribute to our tax dollars. Potential downsides are that those same visitors can overrun beaches, roads, restaurants and stores. They will need hotels and other accommodations which may cause problems for local residents, in that excessive provision for tourists may restrict housing locally. It must be said that visitor behavior can also, at times, be questionable. Striking the right balance is essential.
In response the local’s wishes, government must set rules and boundaries. How many hotels need to be built? How high and big should those hotels be? The old adage that no building may be higher than a palm tree has worked well for some areas, but has been ignored elsewhere. What rules are needed to handle traffic and parking? What about the numbers of tourists who visit at any one time? Probably a large influx of ‘Snowbirds’ is not a major concern for locals, but a sudden rush of ‘spring breakers’ may raise the blood pressure of residents!
So, as with most things in life, the right level of compromise and understanding between all concerned needs to be achieved. Rarely an easy task.
I’ll come back to Tourism Management in the future, but I thought you’d appreciate an update on what is happening in the Tourism business both locally and worldwide.
As I write this, we are in the middle of spring break on the Northern Gulf Coast. The weather so far has been mixed which has meant that although the visitors have arrived many have found that some of the activities they looked for (watersports, boat trips and sun bathing) have been unavailable. However, the forecast for the next few weeks looks good. As Easter and therefore spring break are moveable every year, we tend to look at March and April as one long month, rather than two separate four-week periods. That allows us to compare year on year. So far it looks like this year’s March/April is going to be pretty good.
Looking outside our local region, tourism appears to be removing the restrictions of the pandemic. Countries are for the most part relaxing their Covid restrictions. Airlines are reporting healthy loads and international tourism is certainly recovering. Naturally there are still some problem areas worldwide, but perhaps we can finally begin to get back to normal.
However, what do we consider ‘normal’? We regularly compare tourism seasons year on year, but that doesn’t work at the moment. Last year, for our Gulf area, visitor numbers and spend was very good – if not exceptional. The Gulf Coast was ‘open’ unlike many destinations and there was a pent-up wish to vacation. Travelers had time, and in many cases money, to devote to vacations. Comparing 2021 with 2020 and 2019, both years when the world was in the midst of pandemic, is not sensible. So, the industry has tried to compare to 2018 and before. 2022 has a new set of challenges – more destinations are ‘open’ which provides competition for our area; inflation may be rearing its ugly head and currently gas prices are high. This latter fact is important to the Gulf Coast as the majority of our visitors drive to us.
Can we compare tourism results for 2022 to 2021? No, as I suggested, 2021 was exceptional. Should we compare to 2018, 2017 or before? Well, so much has changed in the intervening four or five years. Working practices have changed, economies have developed, fashions in travel have altered and indeed whole new families of visitors have grown up and started to vacation.
I have a sneaking feeling that we may be looking at a whole new ‘normal’. It’s going to be an interesting year, as always!