Newsmakers 7/1/2021: Newport tourism comeback

from 12 news this is newsmakers destination newport the summer of 2021 is poised to be a busy one for rhode island coastal communities as businesses that rely on tourism in hospitality hope to recover from a lost year but as people once again flock to the coast are those communities prepared for the influx welcome to newsmakers i'm tim white alongside 12 news politics editor ted neesey and our guest this week to talk about that is the president and ceo of discover newport evan smith evan good to see you thanks for coming in thank you for the invitation it's a pleasure to be here to talk about my favorite subject travel well first of all just before we get into all that there are going to be people at home uh watching this program wondering what what is discover newport how would you answer that we are a tourism promotional agency there's hundreds of those nationwide so our job is to promote our destination for both business and leisure travel so our organization is the official tourism marketing office for the nine towns of newport and bristol county so we do that with great enthusiasm and great pride so not just newport you cover uh wall of newport in bristol county okay all right so anyone who has stepped foot in any of those nine towns in the past couple of weekends you know newport they think bristol uh they will come away with the assessment that things are back and they're back in a big way it has been crowded in newport's been crowded in bristol in the in in the other communities is that anecdotal assessment inaccurate one so the travel industry is recovering uh at different stages and different paces so when you see a lot of people who have the confidence to travel now about 80 percent of americans have indicated that they're ready to travel and willing to travel again so we're seeing people coming back out for leisure purposes business travel is still slower to recover and so right now we're seeing people who want to get out and stretch their legs largely the drive market the flights will return uh but it's it's up so the drive market people who live in the area they just want to get down to newport you know because 300 miles within 300 miles is kind of our key sweet spot of visitors who will come to rhode island this summer so the other thing people are seeing a lot of is help wanted signs in restaurants and other businesses there's a worker shortage we've done a lot of reporting on that here at 12 news what are you hearing from businesses as to why that's happening and the impact on them so the last 15 months have been the toughest ever for the travel industry it's been a really difficult time and a lot of our businesses did whatever they could to get creative and innovative and and survive frankly and unfortunately we lost some businesses what i find ironic about this is that they come out of one pandemic and they go into yet another big challenge which is the labor industry that you're talking about and these the number of businesses that are experiencing short of labor is really um limiting the capacity that they can do restaurants can't serve as many people as they want to hotels can't open up as many rooms as they want to everyone is having to scale back sometimes businesses that would be open seven days a week are only able to do five days a week because they fear they're going to have employee burnout that they're just not going to be able to make it through the whole season with the crew that they've got so this is kind of a double whammy if i could use that casual language but it's difficult because they're trying to survive without the kind of help that they would normally have whenever we mention this topic on social media we get a lot of pushback from people who say well if you don't have enough workers you're just not paying enough and if you raise wages then you'll have enough workers and this wouldn't be a problem so it's really a problem on the business side what do you say to that pushback that we're hearing so right now the market is uh in a kind of a free formed place because people are are offering prices that are in some cases twice of what they used to be paid and so you see salaries that used to be below 15 now being people being paid 20 to 25 as high as 30 an hour in terms of incentives that are out there and so i don't think that the lack of money is the issue right now i think that public subsidy is part of the complexity of this conversation meaning unemployment benefits indeed and so when that stops in september i think you're going to see a shift in the paradigm here but another part of this conversation gentlemen is that a number of resorts including rhode island resorts rely on international workers with j-1 visas and places like martha's vineyard nantucket block island newport they're they're all of cape cod all of cape cod thank you uh in many cases 50 percent of their workforce or higher uh have been uh j-1 workers from other countries this year none of those people came in so that is part of the complexity of this conversation because there was no international assistance either which has made the challenge that much greater so i guess the the tough question is there you have you have a few things going on domestic uh labor shortage and then the international one is what needs to happen to address this labor shortage and we're talking in the short term it is as we tape this program it's july 1st where it kicked off the summer season those unemployment benefits are set to expire in september is there any answer to this or you just white knuckle your way through it the business owners are using a pay scale to get whatever labor they can find right now so there is no one magic wand that's going to cure this but raising wages to a point where the market seems to respond and people are coming in seems to be the action step that is making the biggest impact right now i think we're going to and and we do expect that you'll see businesses actually stay closed some days a week there's that that concern that i mentioned earlier about employee burnout and so they're going to pace themselves uh they're going to try to make it through the peak season and and get ready for a better year next year labor-wise um a few months back we had on tourism and hospitality leaders from providence and they were very worried as far as i know they're still pretty worried about the the capital city downtown especially they depend on business travel they depend on conventions how different is the picture in newport as well as the surrounding communities you represent compared with what we're hearing out of providence so one of the things that we've all learned over the last 15 months is as the pandemic went on and we started to learn and observe and watch was that the people from metropolitan areas were leaving metropolitan areas at record rates to go to open spaces to go to mountains to go to lakes to go to the coastal shoreline seeking open space and so what's happened over the last 15 months is that resort areas like newport greater newport area and others in new england have done very well unfortunately and i mean that sincerely unfortunately a lot of metropolitan areas have not they are still suffering from a decline in the area we know that that will come back but their recovery is slower right now and and so we're fortunate uh in a resort area like ours to be able to have the comeback we're having but the recovery will be slower and and because of that more painful i think for our metropolitan areas i have to ask you about short-term rentals uh renting a house or an apartment through an online site like airbnb that has exploded and really has created tension in certain communities like newport there's a bill for lawmakers that would require these property owners to who rent out their homes to register with the department of business regulation in short so they can be regulated and you know a city and town can track whether or not they run afoul of uh zoning laws or something like that i don't i don't know if discovered newport has taken a position on it but do you support or oppose regulations like that in general so specifically to that question we are neutral we're kind of like switzerland in that regard but i will try to tackle that complex question which is short-term rentals are the fastest growing trend in travel every year every three years every five years you see different trends happening in the travel industry so lodging preferences for short-term rentals not only here in rhode island but around the united states around the world is the fastest growing trend in travel it has a fairly long list of advantages and it has an equally long list of disadvantages and so it's a very complex situation it's a very complex debate and frankly where it comes down to is municipal leaders because it's going to be town councils and governments that are going to set policy and and some towns and cities are approaching this in different ways and and so some of them are looking at this as a referendum on whether you can rent your home for 12 nights and keep your residential tax status but if you rent it more than 12 nights then they're going to change your tax status to commercial so that's one option that some municipal leaders are using others are using capacity control so they might say we're going to give 100 licenses and then cap it so it's almost like a lottery other municipalities are using density control saying we're only going to have you know x number of short-term rentals and a density this is um i you know i go to a lot of town council meetings it's brought up at almost every town council meeting uh you mentioned the state legislation it is a it's a it's a topic that still has a lot more debate to go it's going to continue to throughout the summer you're going to see the popularity of the rentals still occurring here but there will be changes i think in the regulatory aspects of this and it's going to be interesting to continue to watch we see our role as providing research and data we want to help municipalities with the kind of data that will help them make good decisions and on how they should regulate these things uh so we we want to be uh part of the solution uh not part of the problem one of the big uh things people look forward to newport every year is the newport jazz festival as well as the newport folk festival they are on this year after being canceled last year but as far as i understand they're gonna they're gonna be looking a little different what's the outlook for the for the big music festivals so last year was a quiet year for us with none of the festivals happening all year long so many wonderful festivals from tennis tournaments to boat shows to music festivals food festivals the robust schedule went quiet last year it was it was eerily quiet so as we come to this year our event partners are all getting ready to gear up at a level that would might be anywhere from 30 to 75 percent of where they were before and their game plan has changed a lot because as the cdc regulations and guidelines have changed so have they had to change their game plan and so each each week or each month it seems as the cdc changes event organizers have to change as well but we've already had some events go off very well we're still have a lot of events to come but they will be scaled back they will have certain cdc health regulations with them they'll be slightly different but i think people are so excited to get back to things they have an affinity for so if you're if you're a passionate tennis player you're going to be so excited to get back to the tennis tournament if you're a passionate yacht or you you're going to want to get back to the boat show if you're a fan of music you just can't wait to get back to these things so even though they're going to be different the the just the excitement of getting back on the road the road towards normalcy is going to take a while but it's refreshing with the backlog of weddings because of the past 18 months i imagine there must be a wedding scheduled every day from now until september in newport and the surrounding communities is that what it feels like right now it does yeah the wedding industry we do about 1200 weddings in newport and bristol a year and that obviously came to a screeching halt it was a very difficult conversation there were a lot of anxious bridal parties it was a very difficult time for the industry they're coming back and to your point right now many of our venues are doing weddings five nights a week i know a number of venues that are that are doing five weddings a week and sometimes two on saturday and two on sunday so there's a lot of catch-up to be made i personally went to a wedding last wednesday night uh that had been postponed twice honestly so there's there's a lot of weddings being put on right now and it's it's it was exciting for that as well it's a lot of fun has that pump uh you know supply and demand does that mean the venues are charging more right now because they're so in demand to get through this backlog no a lot of these weddings were already pre-paid and and frankly part of that conversation was that that was the great debate over do you get a refund or not and and a lot of these weddings are going to happen because the policy was that you know you have to have your wedding and and so no wedding no refund was the position of not everything but a lot of them okay and and so we still have a lot more backlog to clear but that's a healthy sign and a good sign one thing for newport i wonder how you think about this is it's an old colonial town in the end and it wasn't necessarily built with the amount of people that want to be in newport in the summertime how is the how is the city thinking about managing you know i assume demand just grows every year to for more people to come to newport as the population grows but the city itself doesn't get bigger how do you think about managing that just the capacity so i'm going to break that down into three parts so the city right now is working on a master transportation plan and and doing a lot of work through a consultant to look at better ways to move more people more efficiently and so it is an old colonial city it was built and streets were built for horse and carriages so it's time to look at a new transportation plan and transportation alternatives because we're all in love with our cars all americans just want to drive right up to the front door in our car and get out and be there and so we have a lot of psychological and and social adjustments to make as as americans towards our love of automobiles i think the second part of it uh kind of comes on an organization like ours which is that in fact with tourism promotion we're looking to promote the shoulder seasons and the off seasons newport really doesn't need our help to promote itself in july and august there's there's plenty of people there so when we look at creating our programming and and reasons to inspire people to come to our destination we are really looking to put out programming uh and activities that will draw them in the shoulders in the off season evan smith oh you have one more point keep going that's okay just very quickly and i'll keep this very short um i think that a lot of cities and towns are going to get into the capacity controlled debate skeet mountains went there ski mountains used to be entirely open then they said we can only take so many skiers on a mountain and and theme parks used to be wide open than they had to capacity control i think within the geography of the united states islands will be the first one to start to see capacity control and it's a debate that's already begun and i think you'll start to see it phase in in the next couple of years i think venice has talked a lot about that too exactly precisely all right we have to go to a break here evan smith president ceo of discover newport thanks so much for joining us thank you guys and have a great fourth of july you as well and when we come back u.s senator jack reed finds himself in the unusual spot of being in a controversy stay with us you're watching newsmakers [Music] welcome back to newsmakers i'm tim white alongside 12 news politics editor ted niecy ted last week on the show we were talking about the controversy swirling around u.s senator sheldon whitehouse and bailey's beach club that whole story this week senator reid what is going on he's in the i would say national spotlight correct me if i'm wrong for blocking a bill from getting a full vote in the senate that would essentially change how military sex assault trials are handled break this down for a while yeah so this has been a long-running uh discussion in washington in congress about uh there have been just many reports that uh sexual assaults um sex crimes within the military are not being handled well by too many commanding officers you know maybe you know not enforcing punishment maybe targeting the wrong person obviously especially when you have units and that's the process now it's the commanding officer that quote unquote adjudicates these issues exactly so a growing number of uh lawmakers including new york's kirsten gillibrand have been working on this she has a bill uh with significant support that would basically move all felonies out of the military chain of command in terms of how they're adjudicated to independent military process all felonies is key not just sex assault exactly and that's kind of the crux of the controversy that involves senator reid all right so look this is a big issue in washington if you missed ted's report it's on wpri.com it gets

really in-depth on this but you met up for that report you met up with reid and pointed out to him that you know this is getting support from democrats and republicans the bill has more than 60 co-sponsors so that suggests it would likely pass if it came up for a vote you asked him about it here's what he had to say is that fair well it is the rules of the senate measures that have strong support in the united states senate don't sometimes turn out to be the best i think there were about 78 senators who supported the invasion of iraq so you know his first answer there was process and we we've interviewed jack reed for a long time he is a stickler for process but it begs the question um if you could weigh in on it if there are other parts of the bill that make him uncomfortable we talked about the the felony aspect all felonies so look if the bill were to be rewritten and it would it it would be more in line with what he was looking for would he be okay with it going to a full vote on the floor i think there's or is he still about i think there's multiple things going on here i think reed is uh very uh hesitant about messing with the chain of command within the military even on an issue like sexual assault and removing authority from commanding officers what does that do to unit cohesion especially what does that do overseas in terms of uh enforcement second i think as you say tim he's an old you know he's been in the senate now quarter of century he's old school and i think you know what gillibrand is doing she's going to the floor i don't think i said this explicitly he's going to the floor and asking for an immediate vote and reid is popping up to object and say no you can't have it which he's allowed to do and uh he wants this issue to be figured out within the armed services committee where he of course right now is the chairman and where the republican uh who had been the chairman jim inoff does not support doing any changes on military sexual assault so you have the underlying dispute uh at issue about how to change sexual assault uh you know investigations and prosecutions in the military and then a whole question about you know who's in charge here of of how this legislation gets through and let's be clear if you didn't say it um senator reid is open to changing the to a bill gillibrand started going to the floor okay um to say it so he is he says something's going to get done you know the defense secretary saying it needs to change now um it would be it would shock me if they didn't do something on this in the military policy bill that's coming up the ndaa which is the biggest thing he does this year in that crypt but still it's very possible whatever pops out of committee will not satisfy gillibrand and her allies you know this is an unusual spot for reid in my opinion white house's controversy last week was somewhat unusual but you think of sheldon whitehouse as more of a firebrand and his role in the senate judiciary committee was very polarizing with the justice kavanaugh hearings but with reed he largely stays out of these types of of things is this what comes with with chairmanship in other words heavy is the head that wears the crown yeah i think there's a piece of that right i mean i i think even if reed felt this way if he wasn't the chairman of armed services he wouldn't be the one popping up on the senate floor to block her someone else would be sort of expected to take that step even if he was quietly you know supportive of it too of blocking the bill right now so i do think it's that i do just think also you know there is you see in both these cases i think you have you know all you know senior citizen white males uh in a democratic party that has moved to the left and i think both sheldon whitehouse and jack reed are men of the left but they're also kind of old school democrats who you know in children white house's case clearly had a blind spot for just how much the beach club would stick in people's crops and in reed's case here you know his affinity for the military and you know his own army service etc is is has him a little out of step with how some of his colleagues view the importance of that versus dealing with the sexual assault thing all right we're going to shift gears here ted eli sherman and i as you know covered the latest chapter in the saga of the state-run eleanor slater hospital system this week a much anticipated review by health and human services secretary juamazada jones was released and as we already know things aren't good over at the hospital our full breakdowns on wpri.com but ted the upshot is jones lays the blame of much of what's going on over there the current leadership at slater and she she put someone on administrative leave over there and she she argues that she was kept in the dark on some of the issues but an important note is she's been secretary for two years and the hospital fell under her watch i asked her about that at a news conference take a listen do you feel like you bear any responsibility for the problems that have continued to fester my response to you as secretary would be that i do not believe that i showed her that the responsibility how so let me help with that in order to manage you've got to have the authority to manage and and i don't believe that i think that there was an assumption that the secretary was you know what we're seeing but there wasn't direct accountability to her interesting that the the governor jumped in uh there in that answer ted but you look people you know it's hard to understand this issue for people at home i don't blame them it's very complicated to even report on it but it's on their elected officials in the house and senate they need to get it how big an issue is this for them on smith hill right now it's a very big issue and i think there's i'd say there's two even maybe three pieces to it first of all i i just would point back to the patience i mean this is a hospital of last resort for both psychiatric and long-term some 200 patients yeah and you have you know we say hospital you think of one campus eleanor slater encompasses multiple there's amburano up in burrowville there's the cranston campuses um so you have the patients who just need to be taken care of you've seen we've seen some horrible reports about the conditions there second financially for the entire state i mean the the reason this is seen as such a crisis at the moment is because uh they stopped building medicaid the federal government because of people blowing the whistle on alleged bad billing practices which have been an open secret for a long time at the state house how they were kind of massaging that and so we're now well over 100 million dollars in state money in recent years that's had to go here that would have been federally funded in the past and then also zamporano is a very important job center for northern rhode island so that's part of why you have republicans campaigning to keep this very expensive hospital i mean the cost is about 500 000 per patient right now to provide care there but the republicans along with arguing for the the health care side of it say this is very important to our districts real quick i don't know if you know the answer to this has there been any talk about potentially tapping arp funds the american recovery plan funds for uh for this hospital could they use it for that the governor has said he would like to um you know he's i think his team is a little frustrated that the legislature is taking a stronger hand with this money than they did with the coronavirus relief fund last year we're seeing the same thing happen in massachusetts but i think they have such wide such a wide ability to use those money in so many ways if they want to and there's agreement on that i think that's certainly an option they will be looking at and don't forget that's just one stream of funding coming in from the american rescue plan that the big 1.1 billion we talk about a lot so i think that could be an option but i think this is going to be you know the one of the key tests just briefly is are they going to fix this or just try to get it quiet again and go back to the status quo of 2018. all right we'll keep watch on that one thank you for watching the program for all of you watching at home happy 4th of july and we'll see you next week on newsmakers you

2021-07-04 10:03

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