In Mystic, summer tourism bounce-back

Monday, September 6, 2021

This summer, tourism was supposed to bounce-back in Mystic. The spread of COVID-19 was in check here and people in 2020 who had been staying inside amid the pandemic were thought to have become restless to get out and do something and go somewhere and enjoy.

In Mystic, that’s how things have played out here this summer, mainly in the tourism mecca of the state, where those in the business reported having a banner season.

Last week, Peter Armstrong, president of Mystic Seaport Museum and one who could actually present authentic data, explained that prior to the Labor Day weekend, attendance rate in the museum had been about twice what was witnessed in the summer of 2019, the last summer went absolutely unregulated by the restrictions of COVID-19 on travel and businesses.

Armstrong on Aug 28th said that around 117,000 people had visited the museum in the last three months, up from 58,000 over the same period two years earlier. Even when you take away this rise associated with Gov. Ned Lamont’s Summer at the Museum program, number of visitors increased considerably, Armstrong said.

From the state, Mystic Seaport Museum received $1.5 million to compensate the free admissions for children 18 and under and an accompanying adult continued the program through Labor Day though the subsidy had run out weeks earlier. “It was good for us,” Armstrong said of the museum’s participation in the program. “A lot of the people who came had never been here or hadn’t been here in a long time. It was a different demographic than we usually see, too.”

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