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Published on : Monday, August 17, 2020
With the ongoing summers, several tourist destinations in Maryland have had to take measures and get creative to make the visitors feel safe during this pandemic. Maryland experiences a boost in tourism normally during this time of year.
“Tourism is everything. It’s what keeps Solomons going,” Stacey Hann-Ruff, Director of Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center, said.
However, due to the pandemic, the industry has been damaged majorly.
“COVID has been challenging because 50 percent of our visitors come from outside Southern Maryland,” Hann-Ruff said.
Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center, based in Solomons, Maryland, is just one of several attractions that had to change what they were doing for all these years to accommodate visitors while also providing safety to them. “Because of all the restrictions, we have to kind of re-design everything and work very closely with our health department,” Hann-Ruff said.
New guidelines at the garden include restrictive capacity, social distancing and contactless options, like scannable QR codes. Calvert Marine Museum, also in Southern Maryland, has reopened under new safety measures.
To quote Rachelle Green, Deputy Director of the Calvert Marine Museum, “That included things like timed entry to help cap capacity so that the museum is not overcrowded at any one time of the day to help with physical distancing.”
This means that every two hours, the museum closes its doors for a 30 minute sanitization process for the next session.
As tourism has encountered many challenges due to the pandemic, the office of tourism expects locals and visitors can continue to explore all Maryland has to offer, especially outdoors.
“Maryland has 18 theme scenic byways, along those byways we have great state parks and national parks where you can really get out in the open and distance yourselves from other people,” said Matthew Scales, of the Maryland Department of Tourism.
Tags: Maryland