Vermont offers respite in calamitous times

Vermont Business Magazine, Mar 01, 2002 by Marcel, Joyce

Vermont's reputation as a peaceful, beautiful and safe place helped balance the economic aftereffects of the tragic events of September 11. While the attacks on New York and Washington put a damper on much of the travel and tourism industry, they also served to draw people here.

After September 11, fewer people wanted to travel, especially by plane, and so Vermont's travel agents and car rental agencies suffered a big hit; only now are they starting to recover. But because more people stayed closer to home, bookings for hotels, B&B's and restaurants remained strong.

It helps that Vermont is within driving distance of 65 million people. People from the cities, from Boston and New York, who were looking for escape, tranquility or a simple vacation, came to Vermont instead of taking a plane to Europe or California.

"Our rebound in Vermont started sooner than in other areas," said Sally Cavanagh, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing. 'Days after September 11, people were just showing up unannounced, all over the state. They were driving in and saying, 'I just needed to get away.' We've known through years of research that Vermont is seen by the consumer as a place of comfort rest, relaxation, beauty and respite. It really came into play for us after the events of September 11."

Home sales have also been affected. Realtors across the state are reporting a dramatic increase in inquiries from city people who are considering a move to Vermont. Many are also looking at second homes, in order to have a place "to get away to." Some people have already relocated.

In addition, the University of Vermont reports that applications for admissions this year are up by a startling 20 percent. While that cannot be directly attributed to the events of September 11, it might definitely be a factor, the university said.

Tourism

After September 11, the Vermont Department of Travel and Tourism went into high gear.

"Within the first 48 hours, we worked in terms of establishing a tight communications network with the travel industry," Cavanagh said. "We used that network to gather weekly updates on what was happening within the business community. We were also asking the visitor centers to give us visitor counts so we could judge traffic patterns. Then, once a week, we synthesized the information and got it out to the industry." Right after the attacks, the local travel industry experienced a dramatic drop-off in bookings.

"But largely, those drop-offs were from international and distant domestic travel, meaning people from the Midwest and West," Cavanagh said. "The farthest states from us. So we experienced those dropoffs just like everyone else did."

The national Travel Industry Association Website (www.tia.org) reported that international tourism was down in 2001 by 1.3 percent, despite the fact that the World Trade Organization predicted that tourism would grow during that time.

"The last four months of 2001 saw a drop of 11 percent in world arrivals," TIA said. "This decline reflects a change in travel habits in 2001, which revealed that tourists are substituting domestic or short-haul travel for long-haul travel."

Short-haul travel proved to be the salvation of Vermont's tourism industry. By tracking tourists through the Guilford Welcome Center in the south, Cavanagh and her staff learned that in the period between September 20 and October 31, travel was up 30 percent over the same period last year.

"We were also seeing people using our Website in healthy numbers - successively higher numbers," Cavanagh said. "People were checking out what the opportunities were for getting in the car, driving to Vermont, and experiencing what we offer here. So we were able to withstand what could have been a tremendously negative effect from those horrible events. We ended up holding our own."

The state's rooms and meals tax report confirms Cavanagh's observations.

"Since September 11, we have seen the rooms and meals tax hold steady, and in fact, it has grown slightly this year over last year to date," Cavanagh said. "We were up 3 percent over last year for the period of July 1 to December 31. That's a sixmonth data flow including September 11. It's a phenomenal indicator for us that there's stability in the tourism revenue generation capacity of this state. People continue to travel here, even under the most horrific of circumstances. They are not dissuaded from visiting Vermont."

Research shows that something like 76 percent of Vermont's tourists come from New England and the mid-Atlantic states, making New England almost its own market.

"Vermonters are not traveling as far as they might have," said Chris Barbieri, the executive director of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. "That's unfortunate, in terms of helping the travel industry at this time. But there are 608,000 of us. Clearly Vermonters are a factor. We're staying closer to home and recreating closer to home. Not that I'm wishing there were millions of us. But with 608,000, we make an impact. So there's a strange convergence of factors playing out, not just here, but all over the country. Some things are pulling us down, and some are pulling us up."