06 October 2008
Virginia Tourism Reflects National Economic Struggles
Neptune Festival brings a close to Virginia Beach’s summer tourist season
Virginia Beach, Virginia — On one of the last weekends of a lingering summer, the Virginia Beach boardwalk is packed as people meander through crowds amid aromas of chicken-on-a-stick, fried onions and kettle corn.
This is the Neptune Festival, a celebration that marks the unofficial end of the Virginia Beach tourism season, and most of the people attending are not tourists but residents (and voters) of the Hampton Roads area, as this part of Virginia is called. When they go to the polls in November, these voters likely will have economic concerns on their minds.
In summer 2008, the beach has been somewhat quieter, as people struggling with higher gas and food prices pared down their vacations, or cut them out entirely.
“Everybody says they’re down about 10 percent, but you never know,” Marlene Woltz said of business at the oceanfront’s hotels and restaurants. Woltz, a volunteer coordinator and Virginia Beach resident, has worked on the festival in some capacity since 1975.
Across Virginia Beach, hotel occupancy was down about 3.8 percent from 2007 for the three summer months, June through August, according to data from Smith Travel Research, a Tennessee-based company that compiles regional tourism statistics for Hampton Roads.
Fewer people in the hotels meant fewer riders for Hampton Roads Transit's Virginia Beach trolley lines. Ridership on three lines used by tourists dropped from about 113,000 in June 2007 to just more than 79,000 in June 2008.
The group hit hardest might have been the oceanfront retailers, the surf shops that sell the printed T-shirts, sunglasses and flip-flop key chains that tourists take home as reminders of their Virginia Beach vacation. In 2008, with the rise in food and gas costs, families ended up with less to spend on purchases like souvenirs, and many local shop owners reported drops of between 5 percent and 20 percent in sales.
TOURISM VITAL TO ECONOMY
The setbacks are scary for a city that depends on a healthy tourism industry. Visitors to Virginia Beach spent an estimated $890 million in 2007, according to a study by Old Dominion University, and tourism accounted for roughly $1.44 billion in economic output, 15,100 jobs, $378 million in earnings for the city’s residents and $78.4 million in revenue for the city.
“Travel and tourism remains vital to the economic stability of Virginia Beach,” James Ricketts, director of the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in a press release earlier in 2008.
The Neptune Festival is an economic boon to the city, filling the hotels at the oceanfront and bringing thousands of local visitors to the boardwalk. The average attendance at the festival over the last three years has been 500,000 people, generating $18 million in the Virginia Beach economy.
Although the festival draws just 4 percent of its visitors from outside the Hampton Roads area, 80 percent of these tourists stay in hotels and account for 60 percent of the economic effect of the festival.
“Hotels have been full all weekend,” Oliver Joyner, owner of the Capes Resort Hotel on the oceanfront, said October 5. “It’s gone a whole lot better than we thought it would, considering the economic situation.”
VIRGINIA CANDIDATES SEEK TO ADDRESS ECONOMIC WOES
With financial news seemingly getting worse by the day, the economy has emerged as a potential make-or-break issue for candidates in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and parts of Hampton and the Eastern Shore.
Representative Thelma Drake was among the House of Representative Republicans who rejected the first $700 billion economic rescue package designed to shore up the country’s banks. She told local newspaper the Daily Press she was “totally against it.” In a statement about her vote, she urged Congress to consider “alternatives to restore the credit markets.”
Likewise, Republican candidate for Senate Jim Gilmore labeled the plan “ridiculous” and called for a “free market solution that will have some lasting staying power.”
Democratic Senate candidate Mark Warner said he would have voted for the financial rescue plan that the House of Representatives rejected, even though he would have liked more oversight and protections for taxpayers in the plan.
Glenn Nye, Drake’s opponent for the House seat, was skeptical of the economic rescue plan, but resolute that action is needed. Nye told the Daily Press: “I do support an economic assistance package, but taxpayers have to get paid back first. I don't support using taxpayer money for ‘golden parachutes’ for executives. I applaud [U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson’s hard work. ... We have to act quickly.”
The Senate passed a new version of the economic package October 1, and the House passed it October 3. Over the next few months, Virginia 2nd residents likely will get a better sense of what the fallout from Wall Street’s financial crisis means for Main Street, and their own boardwalk. (See “Financial Rescue Bill Boosts Hope as Bush Signs It into Law.”)
At the Neptune Festival, even during a time of celebration, economic stress showed itself in small ways. Along the crowded boardwalk, a lemonade vendor displayed a sign reading: “Please tip. I need a vacation.”
This article is part of America.gov’s continuing coverage of seven of the 435 U.S. congressional districts during the 2008 campaign. Each offers a different prism from which to view U.S. politics. For more information, see U.S Elections — State and Local.
