While the COVID-19 pandemic has largely spared rural Virginia, the economies of many communities have taken a big hit. That’s clearly the case in Bath County – a tourist mecca on the West Virginia border where meal and lodging taxes dropped dramatically and unemployment rose to more than 20%.
In his small office on the main road passing through Warm Springs, Virginia, Mike Bollinger keeps an ear on the police scanner. As Bath County editor for the weekly newspaper, he needs to know what’s going on – if there’s a wreck or a drug bust or something more entertaining.
“Sometimes the scanner can be a source of amusement when the deputies are having to wrangle the cattle off the highway,” he explains.
But the big news this year came from 5 miles down the road where – since 1766 – the Homestead has hosted guests. Now owned by Omni Hotels and Resorts, Lynn Swann is its director of marketing and communications.
“We have 483 guest rooms," she says. "We’re on 2,300 acres, and we have activities including our beautiful spa, two championship golf courses, falconry, mountain biking, equestrian center, shooting club.”
The Homestead is the largest employer in the county –with 700 people on the payroll – and when the parent company decided to close the place in response to COVID – most of them were furloughed.
At the time – three months ago – there were no cases of COVID in Bath, but the decision was a big blow to the county's budget.
“Since the start of this our revenue from meals and lodging taxes is down over 90%,” says County Administrator Ashton Harrison.
Most of the Homestead’s employees qualified for unemployment compensation and federal aid, but that money didn’t arrive immediately, so the county teamed up with the local food bank to keep the community fed and voted to raise taxes.
At another resort, the Ft. Lewis Lodge, innkeeper David Cowden did the paperwork to qualify for the payroll protection program.
“Even though we weren’t open we could still pay our staff," he recalls. "We actually took the opportunity to do some renovation in our dining room and do some deep cleaning of spaces that otherwise would have waited for a month or two.”
And now the place has re-opened. Cowden doesn’t think he’ll make up for the money lost, but so far business is good.
“Some of the mid-week bookings that we wouldn’t ordinarily get are really strong because people are canceling overseas trips, cruise trips, flights. They’re staying local, and that seems to be benefitting us.”
That’s not to say it’s business as usual at Ft.Lewis. Innkeeper Erin Cowden says staffers wear masks and some rooms remain empty so social distancing at meals is possible.
“We’re operating at less than full capacity right now, just to enhance social distancing and make sure our dining room specifically doesn’t get overcrowded.”
At the Omni, guests are required to make a reservation if they want to use the pool, and staffers wear masks and gloves. But those things may not be enough to keep COVID away now that guests are back. Again, Mike Bollinger, Bath County News Editor for the weekly Recorder.
“I mean just me yesterday meandering around, I saw three cars with Florida tags. Well we all know what Florida’s doing. We’ve had people that live here who have recently vacationed in Myrtle Beach. In Roanoke, for example, there have been sixty-plus cases of people who tested positive after they came back from Myrtle Beach.”
In our next report, a look at Bath County’s silver linings – how local people are making the best of a strange situation and why changes made now could bode well for the future.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
