Economy hurts history tourism

BY BILL GEROUX
Media General News Service
Published: July 30, 2008

JAMESTOWN — High gas prices and economic uncertainty are chilling tourism at Jamestown and other Colonial attractions this summer, dashing hopes that Virginia’s $98 million investment last year in Jamestown’s 400th anniversary celebration would carry over.

“I think we did get a little bump earlier this spring, but it’s not the kind of impact we had hoped for,“ said Jeanne Zeidler, former executive director of Jamestown 2007, which planned and ran the celebration for the state.

The increase in gasoline prices “wasn’t very good timing for us.“

Last year’s 400th-anniversary celebration, which included a visit by Queen Elizabeth II and a dozen exhaustively marketed events, filled local motels and restaurants. But organizers and outside experts agreed the real test of the state’s big investment would be sustaining some kind of momentum into this season.

For a while this spring, it looked as though that might happen, said Chris Bryce, supervisory park ranger for Historic Jamestowne, which includes Jamestown Island and the site of the first English settlers’ fort. While the crowds did not compare to last year’s, the parking lots were full.

But when the price of gas rose to about $4 a gallon in mid-June, he said, “everything changed. You could really see a difference. I don’t say people panicked, but they started thinking twice about traveling.“

So far this month, Bryce said visitation at Historic Jamestowne barely has surpassed 18,000. Last July, the total was about 35,000. If things don’t pick up, he said, this month’s total could fail to reach that of July 2004, a benchmark slow year when the park’s visitor center was closed for renovations.

The state-run Jamestown Settlement, where costumed characters stage re-enactments and tourists can board reproductions of the tall ships Godspeed and Discovery, drew 368,944 visitors through the end of June this year. This total is a far cry from last year’s 532,701 visitors but is 3 percent higher than the comparable period in 2006, said Debby Padgett, a spokeswoman for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, which oversees the site.

But combined visitation at the Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center dipped about 3 percent in June from what it was in 2006, she said. The numbers for July are not yet available, but Padgett said they are likely to follow the downward track of June’s.

“It’s not just the gas prices. It’s the whole economy,“ Padgett said. The buzz generated last spring may be preventing a more significant dropoff, though it’s impossible to tell, she said.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates the restored area of Colonial Williamsburg, does not release tourism numbers until year’s end. But Tom Shrout, director of public affairs at Colonial Williamsburg, characterized visitation this summer as “flat. . . . We’ve had up weeks and down weeks.“

The Jamestown 2007 organization, which officially closed July 1, spent much of its remaining money on a marketing campaign exhorting people who missed the big celebration in 2007 to make the trip this year. Jamestown marked its 401st anniversary in May with a scaled-down series of events.

Virginia officials are marketing the Colonial sites to Virginians and residents of nearby states as destinations reachable on a single tank of gas. Colonial Williamsburg has scaled back some of its advertising to far-flung parts of the nation in order to focus nearby.

But the big numbers on the gas pumps and the souring economy are proving a match for any strategy.

“Everything has changed in terms of people being able to afford to go on vacation and to pay for the gas,“ Shrout said. “People’s decision-making has changed.“

That was expressed during interviews with more than a dozen visitors to Historic Jamestowne. The main parking lot was about three-quarters full, and most of the license plates were from Virginia and nearby mid-Atlantic states.

The tourists included several hard-core history enthusiasts who said they gave little thought to gas prices. But they also included Victor Andreana of New York, who chose Tidewater Virginia over Myrtle Beach, S.C., to reduce gas costs.

Nancy Bade of Glen Allen said she originally had planned to travel to Kansas with her six children this summer to visit her parents. But she could not face the prospect of buying that much gas. So the grandparents drove to Virginia instead, and the family planned a series of day trips to the historic areas and theme parks such as Busch Gardens.

“This is our vacation this year,“ she said.

Zeidler, the former director of Jamestown 2007, said no matter how many tourists visit the Colonial sites this year, the 400th-anniversary celebration succeeded in raising Jamestown’s profile and educating thousands of people.

Large chunks of the $98 million cost were devoted to improving the state-run museums and extending state Route 199, a convenient route to Jamestown.

Those investments will pay off, she said, but maybe not this year.

Bill Geroux reports from the Norfolk bureau of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.