What to Know
- As states continue to grapple with the spread of the novel coronavirus by closing non-essential businesses and urging residents to stay in doors, it comes as no surprise that tourism has taken a hit since many tourism spots have shut down to mitigate the contagion
- However, some states have taken a bigger blow to their tourism industry than others. With this in mind, WalletHub looked into the tourism industry of each state to determine which states were the most and least impacted by the pandemic
- It turns out that New York is among the top 10 hardest hit
As states continue to grapple with the spread of the novel coronavirus by closing non-essential businesses and urging residents to stay in doors, it comes as no surprise that tourism has taken a hit since many tourism spots have shut down to mitigate the contagion.
As tourism suffers, workers will bear the brunt. According to data from the U.S. Travel Association and Tourism Economics, there could be as many as 5.9 million jobs lost due to declining travel by the end of April.
However, some states have taken a bigger blow to their tourism industry than others. With this in mind, WalletHub looked into the tourism industry of each state to determine which states were the most and least impacted by the pandemic.
To do this, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 10 key metrics-- ranging from share of businesses in travel and tourism-related industries to travel spending per travel employee and presence of stay-at-home orders.
It turns out that New York is among the top 10 hardest hit.
The Empire State was ranked ninth overall thanks to how it scored on the individual State Dependency on Travel & Tourism Industry and State Aggressiveness Against Coronavirus ranks (which, in turn, comprise the overall rank).
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Meanwhile, New Jersey appears to be the least impacted state of the tri-state region, coming in 31st place. Connecticut came in 13th place.
New Jersey and Connecticut also made appearances in individual categories. The Garden State, for example, ranked among the states with the lowest share of employment of travel and tourism-related industries, coming in at No. 49.
Additionally, New Jersey has among the highest share of consumer expenditures on travel (No. 2), followed by Connecticut (No. 3).
Connecticut is also the state with the highest travel spending per travel employee.
To learn more about the methodology used or to see the complete list, click here.
For the latest on COVID-19 cases in the tri-state, click here.
