Ghost Town No More: Savannah’s Historic Tourism Recovers After COVID
SAVANNAH, GA — In a city built upon its dead, Savannah’s history and ghost tours have battled the pandemic’s plague on tourism and come out alive.
Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia, the thirteenth and final colony. From the Revolutionary War to the Yellow Fever epidemics to the Prohibition Era, Savannah’s history has lent itself to the booming tourist industry of the modern day.
Savannah’s peak tourism season is April to June, and when the Coronavirus pandemic first settled in Georgia in early April, Savannah was one of the cities hit the hardest. Hotel occupancy dropped to only 9%. Hospitality and tourism workers were left without jobs, making up 91% of the city’s unemployment applications. Walking history and ghost tours were completely shut down until June.
“I have nothing but hope that things will be returning to normal soon. The City of Savannah has done a great job in keeping us safe and looking out for small, local businesses. I think we will continue to move forward together,” said Jovianny Berrios, a local ghost tour guide.
In 2019, a year before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the city estimated that 14.8 million visitors brought over $3.1 billion in revenue. With only around 140,000 permanent residents, tourism is the lifeblood of this lush, riverfront town.
“It’s recovery first, but I think long term and hopefully in the short term, it’s also some new business opportunities in our market that we’ve been very fortunate, a lot of other places around the country are not seeing like we are right now,” said Jon Pannell, the 2021 Chairman for the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce.
Currently, the city is still under an indoor mask mandate. Drive-thru vaccination centers are opening soon, and life seems to be moving forward.
“We are now seeing those deaths decline, hospitalizations decline, and we are seeing outbreaks decline. So, we know that what we are doing is working,” said Gov. Brian Kemp.
Museums and tours are the industry leaders. There are around 200 different historic tours offered in Savannah, and on any given night, around 85 tours roaming the city streets are ghost tours. These haunted houses and walking tours have cemented the city’s reputation as one of “America’s Most Haunted,” making it a top destination in the country for those interested in the spooky and paranormal.
“It was hard. That was our peak season when I’m normally giving a tour every single night to huge groups of tourists. I missed it so much — not even so much for the money, but more so for the guests,” said Berrios, who has been giving tours for around four years now.
When the city began to reopen, Genteel & Bard, one of the city’s top history and ghost tour companies, was given special permission to resume operations early because of their patented tour format.
Genteel & Bard has a unique microphone and headset style of tour where each guest is given an individual single-use headset while the tour guide speaks into their microphone. This allows for the guests to spread out and social distance while still being able to hear the tour.
“We were very lucky to be given the opportunity to open up early. I think the city used us as a test run too, to see how we were impacted. Of course there were not many tourists traveling, but we have been seeing a steady increase in reservations since the fall,” said T.C. Michaels, the owner of Genteel & Bard.
The tours of Savannah have been able to bring some aspects of their tours to life during the pandemic. The city has had a dark history in dealing with plagues. The Yellow Fever epidemics in the 1800’s have haunted the city and continue to remind tourists and locals of the reality of life during a plague.
“The stories of those people quarantined during the Yellow Fever epidemics in Savannah were always a part of our tours — how travel bans were enacted in the city and so forth — but to see it realized once more in a similar vein with the Coronavirus pandemic was striking,” said Berrios. “We never expected to create those parallels in our tours and guests are shocked to see how similar the processes were.”
