HYANNIS, Mass. — Small businesses on Cape Cod took a major hit on Memorial Day weekend, with tourism drastically down from what’s typically expected on the holiday weekend.
According to the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, business may have declined by roughly 50%.
“It’s nowhere near the numbers we’re used to on Memorial Day weekend,” said Wendy Northcross, Chief Executive Officer. “We’re assuming 50% loss of business, and we’re hoping that it’s not that.”
Northcross said they will not know the exact numbers until they receive updated data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which counts the number of vehicles that go over the bridges.
“The numbers are significantly off, as you can imagine, because we’re just starting to come back to somewhat expected business patterns," said Northcross.
Northcross added that the cool, cloudy weather may not have helped attract visitors.
At Mayflower Beach in Dennis, sunbathers were scarce on Monday with some people opting to take short walks near the water and ride bike down coastal roads. On Main Street in Hyannis, a well-known shopping district, sidewalks were mostly bare.
“It’s quite depressing when you go down and see your other fellow restauranteurs with their sandwich signs out front, waiting to give pickup, but there’s really no cars out,” said Jason O’Toole, co-owner of Pizza Barbone.
O’Toole added that he hadn’t noticed any real difference in sales at his pizza shop, between the holiday weekend and past weekends this Spring.
“We figured, ‘Oh, it’s Memorial Day weekend, there’s got to be a bigger pop, or more customers, so we’ll staff it up and prep it up,' and unfortunately it wasn’t there," said O’Toole.
“It certainly hasn’t been what we would normally expect it to be,” added his wife and co-owner, Ali O’Toole.
While the couple said they were hopeful about the three-day weekend, they are now questioning what’s in store for their business, and for others on Cape Cod this summer.
There is, however, a new plan in place.
According to Northcross, the Chamber of Commerce is hopeful that a new marketing campaign may help aid local tourism efforts and give businesses a chance to stay afloat.
The Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce has been working on the campaign since March, Northcross said, which targets people specifically from Massachusetts and asks them to visit Cape Cod this summer.
They are hoping to roll it out by the end of June in an effort to bring in tourists for the Fourth of July.
“We are very dependent on travel and tourism-related business activity here. Twice as dependent here as every other part of the state except for the Berkshires,” said Northcross. “For Cape Cod, in one years’ time people will directly spend $1.2 billion in shopping, dining, staying overnight, taking a whale watch, going to our museums.”
When asked about the new marketing campaign on Monday, the O’Tooles felt it was great initiative.
“If I live up in Boston or north of the city, and you can come down here in July or August, I think it’s a brilliant idea that the Chamber wants to put that out there for the state of Massachusetts,” said Ali.
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