An expert on tourism and economic development says South Carolina will need to spend money after Hurricane Irene, even if there's no damage at all in the state.
Dr. Simon Hudson, director of the Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism and Economic Development at the University of South Carolina, says the state has already seen people cancel their reservations in the state in advance of the storm. "If you look at past hurricanes, tourism can drop 20, 25 percent," he says. But he says that's not likely to be the case since it looks like Irene will skirt South Carolina.
"It's very, very important that the tourism industry here put out the message, once the hurricane's gone through, that, hey, we're open for business again. 'Cause the problem is that people perceive that, 'Oh, well, we can't visit South Carolina, North Carolina for a year or so. Let's wait till it's gone,'" he says.
He says, for example, tourism in Thailand was down long after the 2004 tsunami struck and its damage had been cleaned up because people mistakenly believed that it had devastated the entire country.
Businesses along the South Carolina coast are already feeling the economic effects of Irene because of the early media coverage of its possible path and predictions that it would hit "the Carolinas".
Raj Pankhania, owner of the Sea Hawk Motel, says, "It's not just us, it's also the restaurants. We all get impacted, rather than specify North Carolina, South Carolina. They need to specify what part of the Carolinas. Is it South or North? That's a four hundred mile difference."
Dr. Hudson says it's impossible to predict at this point what kind of economic effect Hurricane Irene will have nationwide. The storm is following a path that's similar to Hurricane Bertha in 1996 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
But while both storms hit North Carolina as Category 2 hurricanes and then traveled up the East Coast, Bertha did $371 million worth of damage nationwide and Floyd did $4.5 billion.
"It'll have a negative impact, of course, on the economy," Dr. Hudson says. "But there are always positive spinoffs, from a rebuilding point of view."
And he says since the storm is coming near the end of the tourism season, it will have less of an impact on tourism than it would have if had hit a month ago.
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