Tourism, Lodging & Other Leisure Industries The non-gaming tourism sector in Indian country has been hit even harder by the pandemic and associated mitigation efforts than Indian casinos, as was expected. Other tourism and leisure industries do not have the same ability as casinos to make up lost capacity through increased spending per customer. Closures and other capacity restrictions have hit harder and lasted longer for many businesses in this sector, including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and other arts and entertainment venues. In some instances, operations that reopened have had to endure a second round of closures as cases have spiked with specific ties to bars or large social gatherings. The widespread and ferocious wildfire season in the west further reduced tourism potential for large segments of Indian country. There are 46 hotels comprising 7,000 rooms across the United States that are owned by Indian tribes but not directly affiliated with a casino (in some cases they are not even on a reservation). Smith Travel Research’s survey of hotels across the U.S. includes nearly 74 percent of those hotel rooms, enough to be a statistically valid indicator of performance. The impact of the pandemic and associated mitigation efforts on these properties was even more severe than on the Indian casino hotels previously discussed. According to the Smith Travel survey, annual occupancy for the non-casino hotels owned by Indian tribes was down 32.2 percentage points in 2020 from 67.4 percent in 2019 to only 35.2 percent in 2020. Average room rates were also down, from $165.62 in 2019 to $146.17 in 2020. The net result was a devastating 53.8 percent decline in total room revenue for the year. The graph on the following page compares monthly revenue per available room for the participating non-casino hotels for 2019 and 2020. Other data further underlines tourism and leisure industry impacts. A working paper just published this month by the USDA Economic Research Service [ERS] references a nationwide decline in consumer expenditures for food away from home (spending in restaurants, bars and related venues) of 23.3 percent. National gross output data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis through the third quarter of 2020 suggest the overall decline for the year for arts and entertainment businesses will be at least 28.8 percent, perhaps worse. However, there are also signs of hope for the future for non-gaming tourism and leisure activities. With outdoors activities proving to be relatively safer than indoor activities in terms of viral spread, outdoor recreation, RV camping, golf, hiking and other such leisure options have actually seen spikes in interest higher than in prior years. Purchases of associated equipment to enable such activities have also increased. Some of these spikes are expected to endure beyond the current crisis as people continue to make use of newly purchased equipment and rediscover the joys of the outdoors.
∴ OTHER INDUSTRY SECTORS
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