After a record year for travel and tourism in 2019, Chattanooga entered 2020 expecting another year of record sales in the local hospitality industry and another year of solid growth in the overall economy and job market.
A year-end survey by the Manpower staffing agency rated Chattanooga one of the best employment markets for any mid-sized city, calling Chattanooga a “hiring hotspot” as 2020 began.
But the COVID-19 virus quickly changed that economic trajectory. The coronavirus and the efforts to control its spread has forced the shutdown of one of Chattanooga’s major industries, at least temporarily, and business leaders are unsure when tourism and other local industries will fully rebound.
“The travel and hospitality sectors are expected to have the greatest loss throughout the country during this crisis with estimates of declines anywhere from 40% to 45%,” said Barry White, president of the Chattanooga Tourism Co., formerly the Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The timing on this (arrival of COVID-19) was terrible for us because it us when we were getting into March, which is one of our best months of the year with families traveling to Chattanooga during spring breaks.”
White was one of three key business leaders on the forefront of the economic challenges presented by the coronavirus in Chattanooga who talked with the Times Free Press during a webinar on bringing back business during the COVID-19 crisis.