Arizona tourism continues taking a hit despite the state's reopening

Arizona tourism continues taking a hit despite the state’s reopening

Tourism experts say spending and visiting is down, on all fronts, at least 50%.

PHOENIX - The pandemic has been a harsh reality for Arizona tourism, an industry that supports not only tourism jobs in the state, but government services are getting hit hard as tourism plummets across the state.

Josh Coddington with the Arizona Office of Tourism says that compared to August 2019, across the board, everything is down 50% or more.

"It impacts the state in a major way. It impacts jobs because the spending directly supports tourism jobs, but also jobs in other industries -- that includes tourism. For example, restaurants," Coddington explains.

Comparing August 2020 to August 2019, tourism spending is down 60%, and jobs supported by tourism are also shrinking by 59%.

"We saw the hotel occupancy in the Valley's high season, that springtime between March and April, we expect it to be at the 90% and it plummeted to 10% or less," Coddington said.

Rachel Sulkes is the communication director with UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents nearly 32,000 hospitality workers who work in convention centers, universities, and hotels in Arizona and Southern California.

She says the decline is hitting the hospitality business hard with thousands of layoffs.

She estimates about 15% of the hospitality workforce has gone back to work as California and Arizona begin to reopen businesses.