One Year Later: The pandemic's impact on tourism - WEAU

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EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -In Eau Claire County alone, the tourism industry creates more than 4,500 jobs, and in 2019, visitors spent $259 million in the county according to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

In a year of canceled festivals and conferences, the pandemic has had its impact on the industry.

“It’s been a tough year,” said Benny Anderson, the Executive Director of Visit Eau Claire. “We went from the best year that I had been a part of in tourism in my many years of doing this to the worst in two weeks.”

Visit Eau Claire is an organization dedicated to bringing tourists and their dollars to the area.

What started as a banner year, 2020 put many in the tourism industry into survival mode leading to thousands of lost jobs.

Visit Eau Claire itself had a hiring freeze. Thanks to multiple grants that was the main change for them during the pandemic.

“Because of money like that, we were able to keep all of the things going through that tough year, and also start to grow them,” Anderson said. “Our marketing budget now this year since last year has been able to not only survive, but almost double it.”

Anderson said tourism didn’t completely stop last year, it just adapted. People traveled more by car, visited outdoors and made trips locally.

With fewer out-of-town visitors, places like The Local Store, a gift shop selling local products and mementos, shifted its focus.

Manager Lindsey Quinnies said they worked to digitally connect with those outside of Eau Claire.

“We’ve done a big push for online sales,” Quinnies said. “You know I think a lot of retailers have had to make that shift a little bit to focus more on online sales, so we’ve done a lot with that in the past year. Did a little refresh to our website. Been pushing more of those sales.”

Quinnies said they’re thankful for the community members and companies who helped them make it through.

“We’ve been able to work with local businesses to send things to their clients and employees who are far away that have some sort of connection to this place as well,” Quinnies said.

Chippewa Valley Tours is also turning to the community.

In the season before the pandemic, every Saturday from April until October, it took groups for a walk around Eau Claire mixing food and local history.

Since people couldn’t gather for tours in 2020, Creator Nick White brought the Chippewa Valley experience home.

“We did two different food and drink experience boxes where folks could buy the products,” White said.

This upcoming season White hopes to bring the tours back with precautions.

“At least for 2021 we’ll probably look at those same households or friends and family that are already in that same circle, and then hopefully in 2022, we can go back to full tours,” White said.

As more and more people get the COVID-19 vaccine, the tourism industry is hopeful will return to the Chippewa Valley.

Wisconsin’s annual tourism stats have not been released yet. That will paint a better picture of 2020′s impact on the industry.

Visit Eau Claire estimates by 2022, many areas of tourism locally should be back to pre-pandemic levels.

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