Tourism on empty?
Gas prices, economy fuel big drop in attendance
Grace Beahm
The Post and Courier
Greg Minor with Festiva Resorts works with tourists on Market Street at the Church Street Inn.
In a slump
Attendance at Charleston-area tourist attractions in the first half of this year and last:
Jan. Feb. March April May June
2007: 87,959 90,087 170,564 225,236 175,243 175,814
2008: 80,602 86,239 177,658 182,416 150,788 155,417
Empty carriage tours might be fun for the horses, but they're frightening some local businesses.
It has been a scary summer in the tourism industry here amid the trickle-down of those two usual suspects: high gas prices and a lagging economy.
But there's a bit of good news: People are still coming here.
The bad news: They're not patronizing local attractions.
That may be because, with the sudden popularity of one-tank trips and "stay-cations," many of this summer's tourists are nearly local themselves.
Month-to-month traffic at museums, historic homes and other attractions has slumped by tens of thousands of people compared with last year, according to the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
April's numbers were down more than 40,000 from the same month last year, May fell over 24,000 and June saw a drop of more than 20,000.
Just ask Jodie Shearer at Old South Carriage Co.
Standing outside the stables one recent afternoon, she said, "This time last year, we were kicking out carriages every 15 to 20 minutes. Now it's every 30 to 45 minutes."
And when guides outfitted in Confederate garb ask, "Where are ya'll from?" at the start of their tours, Shearer said, they've been hearing a familiar refrain: Georgia. North Carolina. Florida. Maybe an exotic couple from Tennessee.
Old South carted 400 to 600 tourists a dayat peak season last year, Shearer said, but averages 200 to 300 right now. The company had 14 drivers on the street last summer but cut that number in half this year to match the lower demand.
Hotel occupancy across the greater Charleston area dipped to less than 74 percent this June compared with nearly 80 percent a year before, according to Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research. That company also found that the average daily rate at local hotels fell in June for the first time in more than four years.
With the euro trumping the dollar, some tourist hot spots report more foreign traffic in addition to throngs of visitors from within the Southeast.
As summed up by a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. greeter who did not want to be identified: "All the tourists are German, and we used to get 30-minute waits. Now it's a 10-minute wait, if at all."
Around the corner at A.W. Shuck's, business is down about 10 percent this summer, according to general manager Brenda Roper. At noon on a recent Friday, the popular seafood restaurant was empty downstairs, with plenty of tables open on the second floor.
An overstocked display case of T-shirts and kitsch illustrates how much tourists mean to this place. But Roper's servers hear from those who do make it to town that they can't afford to stay as long. "People don't have the gas to go on a vacation," she said.
To stave off losses, some organizations have gotten creative.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau launched a new campaign — One Tank to Charleston — to try to draw tourists who can drive here without refueling. The S.C. Aquarium just announced its "Pay like a kid, Play like a kid" program, which offers children's admission prices for all South Carolina residents.
When cancellations poured in early in the summer, Fred Holland Realty, which manages 285 properties on Folly Beach, began offering $100 discounts billed as a "gas special."
"People would call and say, 'Gas is expensive. We're not going to take a vacation this year. By the way, what kind of deals do you have?' " said owner LaJuan Kennedy.
The discounts reclaimed some visitors, she said. Then people came around on their own, with the help of a small miracle. "Gas dropped one nickel," Kennedy said. "That's a psychological thing, I know."
Hank Holliday, owner of several top-tier restaurants and hotels in the City Market area, expects Charleston to fare better than the rest of the country.
Holliday's properties fell under budget in June "when the sticker shock hit," he said, but rebounded in July, even reaching record revenue levels. "Our feeling is Charleston is somewhat insulated," he said.
Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or abird@postand courier.com.
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Comments
This article has 4 comment(s)
Posted by ClemsonTi9er on August 2, 2008 at 8:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I am a new tour guide for the City of Charleston, and even though I am new, I notice the difference from how my co-workers talk about the "good ol' days" when we would be doing four and five tours a day each.
Because it pays my bills, I am in favor of tourism. However, I think the legislature of this great state should reassess tourism as our number one industry.
As it is apparent in this article, one of the first things people are going to do with a struggling economy is not travel or not travel as far. Therefore, our beloved tourism industry is going to suffer because that's what people use their discretionary income on.
More money should be spent in researching ways we can become self-sufficient as a state and not rely on D.C. to "save us" because that will happen when hell freezes over.
Also, as is the case with serving food, we serve history. Please tip your guide because we live off of our tips. Spread the word! Thanks.
Posted by farfallaspeaks on August 2, 2008 at 8:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
i love johnQ!!!
who gives a crap about the carriage companies!
they work those poor horses to death when it's over 100 outside! that's why tourists don't want to ride them!
they're dropping like flies in the middle of july!!!!
they should just close down.
i want to call PETA on them! It's wrong!
and they crap in my neighborhood and don't bother cleaning it up! i'm tired of downtown smelling like horse poop. Tourists' kids pick up the little flags and play with them and have no idea what they even are until they walk into a restaurant and put them on their table!
Posted by ClemsonTi9er on August 2, 2008 at 11:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Farfallaspeaks,
You obviously know diddly about horse care. Those horses are well taken care of. We check their temperature every time they come off tour. If they are running a temperature, which some are, we cool them down before they go back on tour.
They are also not going out all the time. They may do three or four tours a day so they are only doing three to four hours of work and that is much easier on them than what they used to be doing before we actually, in a sense, rescue them.
Also, it has not been over 100 but maybe a handful of times all summer, and the City of Charleston mandates that we take the horses off the streets at 98.
Furthermore, we make it a point to instruct our tourists not to pick up those little flags as they are urine markers for the equine sanitation crew to come by and CLEAN UP as we must report in to sanitation when a horse uses the potty in the street.
Most of the horses have little diapers so most of their crap is going into a diaper and not into the street.
Before running your mouth, I would advise you to do some quality research on the matter of which you speak.
And by the way, we have never truly and probably will never have a "free market" economy. Way back when, we had this little thing called slavery, and now we have things called subsidies, big government, etc.
Getting an education in South Carolina? Maybe our public schools are lagging behind, but we have an excellent higher education system as one of our own, Clemson University, has been rated in the Top 30 public institutions in the country as well as TIME magazine's public college of the year in 2001.
The University of South Carolina, albeit such a horrible area (I am a Clemson grad), is one of the top places in the world to obtain a business degree.
Oh, and by the way, if you want to get technical, it was not a "civil war." Please see the defintion of civil war and you will see what I mean. Two independent countries were fighting against one another: U.S.A. vs. C.S.A.
It is only "civil," because of the nature of the war itself. Brother fighting brother and father fighting son. It happened. For example, Abraham Lincoln himself had close relatives fighting for the Confederacy.
To be proper, say "War Between the States," and if you are from the South, there are many ways to describe the war: War of Northern Imperialism, War of Northern Agression, War for Southern Independence, and my personal favorite, the recent or late unpleasantness.
Posted by CaptPete on August 3, 2008 at 12:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
It's August a low time during the summer anyway. Once Oct rolls back around the carriage tours will pick back up.