Coronavirus will cut in half SC tourism dollars by year’s end, official says
People aren’t vacationing in South Carolina and restaurants can’t serve food inside during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, and that is having a big impact on the amount of money the state typically brings in through tourism each year, state leaders heard Thursday.
Occupancy rates at the state’s roughly 1,200 hotels has dropped dramatically since early February when fewer people were traveling, said Duane Parrish, the director of the state’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department.
Last year, tourism accounted for $24.5 billion in spending in South Carolina.
This year? It’s expected to add up to $12.2 billion, Parrish said.
Parrish disclosed those figures Thursday at the first meeting of Accelerate SC, a 29-member advisory group assembled in the last week by Gov. Henry McMaster to help slowly reopen the state’s economy and get more South Carolinians back to work and on the road.
The group is responsible for coming up with recommendations for the governor in the next 30 days.
Leading the charge to craft those short- to long-term goals to spark the economy is Nelson Mullins attorney James Burns.
Burns told the group, which met for the first time Thursday at the University of South Carolina, that McMaster said the task force should not be “some blue ribbon panel.” The governor wants real recommendations, Burns said, adding he will be the group’s cruise director through it all.
“We’ve had a lot of challenges in our lives, over the history of our wonderful, unique state and this is certainly one of them,” McMaster told the group, which includes university, business and health officials. “Unlike other places, we work together so very closely. It’s like a family.”
The hit to Palmetto State tourism could have a huge impact on the state’s budget.
Parrish said one in 10 jobs in the state are tourism related, and the industry generates about $1.8 billion in taxes a year. The state’s current general fund budget, the pot of money lawmakers get to spend on state services, is about $9.3 billion.
Earlier this month, state economists said they project that South Carolina will miss out on more than $1 billion resulting directly from coronavirus’ impact on the collection of tax dollars.
However, the state will get federal help.
Already through the federal CARES Act package, the state received its first federal deposit of $998 million and expects to get the second deposit of $998 million by Friday, said a state Department of Administration official.
Though Parrish said tourism revenue is expected to gradually increase as the year goes on and the economy reopens, he doesn’t “believe people will be ready to fly in the next 60 days.”
“We do have some ... lights at the end of the tunnel in regards to some events,” Parrish said, mentioning that NASCAR plans to hold a race at the Darlington Race Track in mid-may and that RBC Heritage will hold its PGA golf tournament in Hilton Head in June.
McMaster said Thursday he is confident the group will bring the state back to its “full economy, vigor and competition” and that the state will come out of the health crisis in a better economic position than some of South Carolina’s neighbor states.
“We have a great opportunity to get back to where we were before.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 4:37 PM.
