How businesses are navigating through travel restrictions amid pandemic
Small business owners Tina Hewett-Gordon and Renae Perry weigh in on ‘America’s News HQ.’
As the United States deals with a resurgence in coronavirus cases, a business owner in California and a general manager in Maine, who both rely on tourism, explained Sunday on “America’s News HQ” how they are forced to navigate through new travel restrictions during the pandemic.
“It doesn’t look like we’re going to be back to normal any time soon,” Renae Perry, a co-owner of Papapietro Perry Winery in Healdsburg, Calif., said. Healdsburg is located in Sonoma County and part of California’s Wine Country.
She went on to say, “I personally feel like this is going to go on for quite a while so we’re going to have to adapt our business.”
Perry added that she already has “made so many changes” to her business during the pandemic, which included adding virtual tastings.
“Every day I feel like I have to reinvent my business in order to stay up with things,” Perry said, adding that she will continue to “adjust” if needed.
Perry made the comments as the United States recorded fewer than 50,000 new coronavirus cases Saturday for the first time in four days, while the world set a global record for confirmed infections in a 24-hour period, the World Health Organization reported.
Perry noted Sunday that she has been able to open and serve guests outside.
“We’re lucky enough to have a big patio and we have everybody at six feet apart. All our employees are wearing masks, our guests wear masks, so we’re being very careful, cleaning everything in between,” Perry said.
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She went on to say that even though she was able to open, “clearly business is not as usual.”
“We’re not getting guests from other states like we normally would,” Perry added. “We usually have quite a few visitors from all over the country at this time and we’ve noticed that most of our guests are from the local Bay Area.”
Perry said if she will be forced to close her business once again because of the spike in coronavirus cases, she will “comply happily because we really want to make sure everybody stays healthy.”
She went on to point out that “luckily, alcohol and wine business has been actually quite good during this virus because people are staying home, I believe, and drinking out of their wine cellar.”
She explained that generally, “business has moved from in-person to online and so we were able to deal with it all,” adding that she still preferred seeing guests in person and hoped she wouldn’t have to close again.
Host Alicia Acuna noted currently there have been 15 states “that have some sort of travel restrictions.” She then asked Tina Hewett-Gordon, the general manager of Nonantum Resort in Kennebunkport, Maine, how business has been going especially since so many of the states with travel restrictions surround Maine.
“It’s nothing like we’ve ever seen in the past,” Hewett-Gordon said. “It’s slow.”
Nonantum Resort reopened about one month ago after being closed because of coronavirus shutdown orders.
“In the month of June, we typically would be sitting at around 70 percent occupancy,” she continued. “This past June, we recorded 8 percent. And, our forecast going into July and August normally would be around 90-percent occupancy, and we’re seeing numbers anywhere between 25 and 30 percent for this coming season.”
Hewett-Gordon went on to say that she had some issues with the restrictions Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, has placed on people coming to Maine from other states.
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According to information provided by The Maine Tourism Association, as of July 3, visitors from Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey are allowed to visit Maine and stay in commercial lodging establishments with no quarantine requirement and no COVID testing required.
For visitors from all other states wanting to stay in commercial lodging establishments, they must either quarantine for 14 days or sign a certificate of compliance stating that they have tested negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours before arriving in the state.
“The issue with that is, the testing is not readily available,” Hewett-Gordon said. “It’s leading to a lot of frustration and resentment on the people who normally come to Maine.”
She went on to say it’s “frustrating” for her as well. She said she’s grateful she can accept residents from Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, but added that “the fact that we can't accept residents from Massachusetts is very frustrating because the message is not clear as to how the governor is determining what states can and cannot come in.”
Hewett-Gordon pointed out that the numbers of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts “are actually lower than some of those other states.”
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“I really do believe that this is going to change people’s booking patterns, and the impact it has on our industry is just devastating,” she added, “obviously for the employees as well. We’re only at about a 20-percent staffing level right now.”
Fox News’ Alicia Acuna and Peter Aitken contributed to this report.
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