Normally this time of the year, Sedona hotels are near-capacity while restaurants and shops are packed with visitors as they enjoy the springtime weather.
Things are different these days as streets and most businesses are barren as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some business owners have tried their best to keep their businesses open — including hotels and some restaurants that are offering delivery or takeout — as they wait to receive word when things can reopen.
“It’s totally dead these days,” said Steve Segner, owner of El Portal Sedona Hotel and president of the Sedona Lodging Council. “If any of us are at 20% [occupancy] right now we’re doing well.”
Segner estimates that about a quarter of the hotels and resorts in the Sedona area have closed. The latest hotel occupancy figures through April 11 showed that Sedona was at 10%, which is based on the total number of hotel rooms in the area, including those that are closed. The state was around 20% occupancy on that same day.
Local and state hotel occupancy was around 80% at the end of February.
“In the immediate future, when things begin to open up, if we can get to 50% occupancy we’ll all be tickled pink,” Segner said.
Once things do begin to open up, Segner said it will be important for hotels to take steps to ensure maximum safety. In addition to wiping things down throughout the day, he said hoteliers will need to ensure one empty room between occupied rooms and after a guest departs, not using that room for at least three days.
“It will be important for us to promote Sedona as the safest place to come to in Arizona,” he said.
With all the recent business closures, Segner said it should give people a glimpse as to what Sedona would look like if it weren’t for tourism.
“Our lifeblood is tourism — it always has been and it always will be,” he said. “We wouldn’t have the number of grocery stores and certainly not the number of restaurants, hotels and other businesses we have now without tourism.”
One of those resorts that chose to close was Enchantment, the largest in the area. Upon closure, management announced that the plan was to reopen on April 15. On Friday, April 24, the resort announced it is hopeful to reopen sometime in May, but did not give a specific date.
“We feel that we have a social responsibility to stem the spread of COVID-19 and will continue to follow the directions and mandates put in place by federal and state government officials as well as CDC guidelines,” Enchantment Resort stated in a press release. “It is our hope that we can all be together again soon.”
In recent years, the Sedona Chamber of Commerce has reduced its marketing budget while focusing on quality over quantity in terms of visitors.
On April 14, a committee put together by the chamber met and discussed the current situation and messaging to visitors, businesses and residents. The committee also reviewed tourism research and trends that will impact Sedona’s recovery.
“We took the rest of the meeting to discuss marketing goals and strategies,” Chamber President and CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff said. “There was a lot of discussion about expectations for recovery, timing, messaging and marketing strategies and tactics.”
She said the committee will take their recommendations to the chamber’s board of directors and then they’ll take the entire plan to the Sedona City Council for its approval.
The key takeaways from the meeting, according to Wesselhoff, included Sedona’s need to be strategic about economic recovery and being sensitive in managing business, visitor and residents’ expectations.
“We need to keep safety of employees, guests and the community top of mind, which most likely means a phased approach,” she said. “The chamber’s role is nongovernmental, and I want to make that clear. We are a nonprofit, voluntary, membership organization with no authority to make economic policy nor decide things like opening or closing the economy.
“We have a voice and are committed to using that voice responsibly. In this case, we are managing travel and representing our business community with the public health and safety at top of mind — while recognizing the need to make plans for moving forward.”
Wesselhoff anticipates state and local governments will be making decisions in the next two weeks that are going to be controversial.
“Businesses need to reopen in order to survive,” she said. “People are saying repeatedly they want to get back to work. But many questions about the virus and what will happen under different scenarios cannot be reliably answered. You can see governments trying to find a middle path and that will be difficult. I think it can be done — but not without controversy. My hopes are that we can stay united as a community.”
