From the Editor: With 2020 tourism season slipping away, industry shows its resilience
Maine’s $6.9 billion tourism industry is seeing its key season slip away. Restaurant and hotel restrictions and quarantines on visitors are forcing some businesses to close and others to hang on with CARES Act funds or even GoFundMe appeals.
Things have been unquestionably bad in Bar Harbor, the gateway town to Acadia National Park. It’s a nearly five-hour drive from Boston and eight hours by car from New York, and cruise ship traffic has been shut down. Overnight guests, not day trippers, make up the visitors. And the park itself is used to hosting more than 3 million visitors a year.
As Laurie Schreiber reports, for most in Bar Harbor the season has been a bust. Many businesses cannot even afford to open their doors this year. Most are looking ahead to the 2021 season. One hotel owner is scratching by on cash reserves, leaner operations and a mortgage restructuring. “It’s scary to think that we won’t see any income until October of 2021,” he says. “But here’s a bigger issue. People don’t necessarily want to travel as much as they used to. And Bar Harbor, not being close to anywhere, becomes a little bit less of a desirable location.” See Laurie’s story, “Bar Harbor bust,” on Page 17.
Yet there are signs of life in the industry. As Maureen Milliken reports, a number of inns around Maine have adapted to restrictions on indoor dining by investing in outdoor eating spaces. Mainebiz visits Kennebunkport’s Nonantum Resort, which put up a series of tents to offer waterside outdoor dining, and Spruce Head, where the Craignair Inn invested in an outdoor dining space it plans to make permanent. Just bring a blanket and bug spray, one manager says. As an industry leader tells Maureen, “Right now, businesses are looking at any way to generate business that will help them survive,” he says. See “INNside out” on Page 12.
One group that seems to prosper in the toughest situations is diehard entrepreneurs. Renee Cordes talks to several startups trying to make their mark in the $3 billion outdoor-recreation industry, which is seeing challenges of its own this season. See “The outsiders” on Page 14.
Our list in this issue is Maine’s largest family owned businesses. See Page 22.
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