A quick look at the way New Hampshire tourism has fared during pandemic

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

In New Hampshire, COVID-19 has affected almost every level of its tourism, starting right from leaf peeping to dining. Visitors are experiencing state regulations both in New Hampshire and often in their home state as well.

Due to these disputes that Lori Harnois, New Hampshire Tourism Director, says, “The Division is not forecasting travel or spending for the 2020-21 winter season. Similar to summer and fall, due to COVID-19, there are many unknowns and variables with the potential to impact visitation and visitor spending, making it difficult to project those figures.”

Harnois explains that the data isn’t in to understand the way the tourism marketing of New Hampshire has impacted visitation, when it comes to the fall season.

“Our marketing this fall was quite different than years past,” she notes. “We promoted the state as a foliage destination to visitors from New England, where there were no quarantine restrictions. Anecdotally, there was steady visitation to the state during the months of September and October.”

Canceled festivals reached across the state. Ginnie Lupi, director of the NH State Council on the Arts, says, “The pandemic has significantly impacted cultural tourism throughout New Hampshire. Most performance venues have been closed for the duration and expect to remain so for at least several more months, and museums that did reopen are seeing few visitors.”

Major festivals like the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Annual Fair and the NH Highland Games, attracting visitors worldwide, and regional arts events, which draw participants and visitors from adjacent states, did not occur last year at all.

Looking forward, Lupi continues, “Now that the vaccines are being distributed, we are hopeful that by the summer of 2021, New Hampshire’s cultural activity and related tourism will rebound.”

With festivals and venues closed, people of New Hampshire and New England were keen to enjoy safe activities.

New Hampshire State Parks Public Information Officer Brent Wucher says that “2020 was definitely a year that started off with a lot of uncertainty for NH State Parks.”

He notes that initially they were trying to find out the possibility that parks might not open all through the 2020 summer season at all. However, by mid-March, Wucher says they witnessed record numbers of hikers at popular locations such as Mt. Monadnock.

Wucher emphasized that Mt. Monadnock managed the pilot program for the advanced day-use reservation system that was later rolled out to all the other parks for the 2020 season.

“It worked well as a way to avoid large numbers of hikers on the mountain on busy weekends,” Wucher notes.

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• Last fall, New Hampshire tourism achieved a record of 4.3 m visitors

• New Hampshire expects more than a million visits this winter