Calendars are filling up as vaccinations roll out, and people in the business of bringing people together anticipate a brisk summer and busy fall for Chattanooga travel and events.
“There’s a lot of pent-up demand,” said Barry White, the CEO of the Chattanooga Tourism Co. “People are ready to get out.“
White and Terry Hart, CEO of the Chattanooga Airport Authority, predicted encouraging travel trends, but also urged continued caution. Their comments came during a conversation Tuesday as part of the annual Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce Business Expo, which was hosted online for the second year.
While the Hamilton County mask mandate will lift soon, a federal mask mandate will remain in effect for airports, Hart pointed out. And people are likelier to travel to communities where they feel safe, White added.
“The [local] mask mandate is ending sometime soonbut we’ve still got to maintain some level of safety because we don’t want the surge, we don’t want the bottom to fall out again,” White said.
Major attractions including the Tennessee Aquarium, Rock City and Ruby Falls have limited capacity through timed ticketing and asked that visitors wear masks since they were allowed to reopen last spring. Those measures have been essential to reassuring people that Chattanooga is a safe place to visit, White said.
“If they wouldn’t have done that, we would not be where we are today,” he said. “Leisure travelers have kept us going.”
A rise in drive-in traffic and weekend trips to outdoor destinations boosted Chattanooga’s profile as a tourism destination during the pandemic. In terms of hotel occupancy, Chattanooga came in second, behind only Gatlinburg, in 2020 across Tennessee.
According to a recent ranking of travel-related Google searches by state, Tennessee has jumped from 27th to 16th in frequency of searches, and Alabama has jumped from 30th to sixth. The study from tripstodiscover.com also found that searches for Hawaii plummeted from fifth to 33rd.
In 2019, tourism had an economic impact of $1.2 billion in Hamilton County. Those numbers were down 11% in 2020, but that wasn’t as grim as the 42% they dropped nationally, White has said.
At the Chattanooga Trade and Convention Center, the fall events calendar is so tight he’s running out of dates, said CEO Mike Shuford.
Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Tullahoma, Tennessee, residents Paisley Woodcock, 4, Donna Jones and Lee Martin look at the fish at the Tennessee Aquarium on Thursday, April 1, 2021.“Your big events want to meet on the weekends and there’s only so much capacity,” Shuford said. “Once you get past Labor Day, it’s hard to find dates.”
Most events are still booked with extra space for social distance, but mask use has varied a bit, Shuford said. For example, it is difficult for participants in competitive sporting events including the cheerleading and volleyball competitions the venue is hosting, so they take off their masks when they compete and then put them back on, Shuford said. By the fall, he expects masks will be less common overall, Shuford added.
“When we get to the fall I’m assuming that everyone that wants a vaccine has got one,” he said. “Hopefully everything is back to normal once we get to Labor Day – we’re operating on that assumption now.”
At the Tennessee Aquarium, timed ticketing and mask requirements will remain in place for the time being, said Chief Marketing Officer Thom Benson.
“Everyone who wants to be vaccinated we hope will be fully vaccinated by Memorial Day, and then we’ll look at our game plan for the rest of the summer,” he said.
The aquarium is expanding capacity by extending hours, and saw some success with that approach over the spring break travel period when people bought up tickets for 8 a.m. entry times, Benson said.
“We want to make sure we’re maintaining space within our buildings,” he said. “We’re taking a measured approach to everything.”
But some local attractions are beginning to plan to loosen some restrictions. Ruby Falls, which has been operating at about 40% of its capacity, will open up to its normal attendance volumes on Memorial Day weekend, said CEO Hugh Morrow.
“The demand is there – people are traveling and they want to get out again,” Morrow said. “People are getting comfortable with travel and we’re expecting a really good summer, certainly much better than last year.”
The Lookout Mountain attraction is keeping its mask requirements through May 31, but it is planning to lift the mask-wearing mandate after that.
“We reserve the right to extend that [mask mandate] but we feel that by May 31st everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated and there shouldn’t be any reason why somebody isn’t vaccinated by then,” he said.
Ruby Falls did only about 40% of its normal volume last summer during the pandemic – the worst downturn in the 92-year history of the underground waterfall attraction. But Morrow said he expects a much busier summer this year.
“We’ve worked very hard to get to where we are today and I think we’re on the right path,” he said. “It’s time to get back to work.”
However, that’s a little easier said than done, he added. One of the biggest challenges for Ruby Falls and other businesses in the hospitality industry is finding enough workers.
“There were a tremendous amount of people working post-retirement in hospitality and they just didn’t want to take a chance during the pandemic,” Morrow said.
Shuford has has similar challenges, he said. He isn’t quite ready to offer his laid-off employees full-time work yet, and they’re better off on unemployment for the time being, he said.
“I feel good about the future, the summer is picking up, and now the challenge is trying to get employees back,” he said.
Staff Writer Dave Flessner contributed to this report.
Contact Mary Fortune at mfortune@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maryfortune.