Beach Towns Ask: Will There Be Summer?

A need for reopening guidance

When the Outer Banks reopen to tourists on Saturday, Pam Gutlon, the innkeeper at the White Doe Inn, will be there to welcome guests. But she is nervous about the lack of clear guidance from the health department on how best to accommodate guests.

“I’m excited to see people, but I’m also being terrified because it’s too soon to reopen,” she said. “I don’t think the state has met all the standards they said we’d need to meet before we open. We are still seeing new cases, and the rules about how to operate just aren’t clear.”

Ms. Gutlon, as well as other innkeepers and owners in North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Washington state, said that they are trying to figure out the rules for guest numbers, social distancing and serving food on their properties. For example, she said, no more than 10 people can gather, but the inn typically has about 16 guests in its eight rooms, in addition to staff — so would filling rooms be breaking the rules?

In Massachusetts, where short-term rentals (including hotels) have been banned since March, the lack of direction from authorities led 26 Martha’s Vineyard innkeepers and hotel operators to write a letter to Gov. Charlie Baker’s advisory task force earlier this month, asking for guidance about reopening. Thirty-two business owners from neighboring Nantucket also signed the letter which called the continued close of business an “impending crisis” and expressed fear about what would happen if businesses didn’t open this summer.

Governor Baker said on Monday that the state will reopen in four phases beginning around May 18, but it’s not yet clear in which phase hotels and short-term rentals will be allowed to reopen. Despite the lack of a firm date, seasonal ferry service is scheduled to begin between New York, New Jersey, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket during the first week of June; service between Oak Bluffs, on Martha’s Vineyard, and Falmouth, on Cape Cod, will begin on May 22, along with service between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Service from Boston to Cape Cod on Boston Harbor Cruises and Bay State Cruise Company is not currently running and does not have a start date.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/travel/virus-summer-tourism.html