Branson opens in time for summer. But can a town built on tourism survive a pandemic?
Every day, the crowds have grown a bit larger at Dick’s 5 & 10, the big and bold variety store in downtown Branson.
Sure, things are different: mask-wearing staff stay busy sanitizing shopping baskets, limiting customers and handing out masks. But co-owner Steve Hartley believes that Branson’s all-important tourism business is beginning to bounce back.
The way he sees it, the coronavirus has made many people change their priorities, focusing more on family and searching for simple comforts.
“They’re looking to our Lord and savior for that,” he said as customers picked up old fashioned candies and Branson souvenirs. “If there’s any place in the United States that stands for faith, family and flag, it’s Branson, Missouri.”
More than 7 million people travel to Branson every year. Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kickoff to summer, has always guaranteed packed hotels and resorts, outlet malls full of tourists and long lines winding outside steak houses and theaters on the 76 Strip.
But no one quite knows what to expect during a year defined by pandemic. City officials have already predicted a nearly 50% drop in the city’s tourism fund revenues this year.
“I’m looking for a good weekend,” said Branson Mayor Edd Akers. “I don’t look for a record weekend.”
Travel was among the first economic victims of the coronavirus pandemic, with jets parked on runways, hotels locking their doors and cruise ships docked for months on end.
But Branson leaders think their southwest Missouri community is well positioned to capture stir-crazy families who have been cooped up at home for months. It’s easily accessible by car and visitors can opt for a cabin or condo to stay isolated from big crowds.
Inside Dick’s 5 & 10, customers this week were busy picking through the more than 250,000 individual items that pack the long aisles of the general store.
“This is a good place to find ‘I Love Lucy’ stuff,” said one customer in a tie-dye Branson T-shirt.
With capacity limits on his store, Hartley knows business will be down this summer, but the last few days have boosted his optimism.
“People are ready to get out,” he said. “They are spending money.”
Still, this isn’t the Branson you know.
Frequently a nightmare of traffic, the strip was easy to maneuver this week with many major attractions, like Presleys’ Country Jubilee, Jim Stafford Theatre and Dolly Parton’s Stampede Dinner still closed. Parking spots were aplenty on Main Street as some smaller stores, ticket vendors and ice cream shops remained closed.
Some restaurants are sticking to just curbside service for now. And the area’s biggest attraction, Silver Dollar City, has yet to announce any information about a reopening date.
As tourism-dependent businesses start to ramp up, health officials know an influx of visitors will likely cause the number of COVID-19 cases to rise. So far, Taney County has reported 12 cases and two deaths. The county’s last positive case was the first week of May.
“We are certainly worried about what could potentially happen. There’s no way that we’re going to eliminate all risks in this situation,” said Lisa Marshall, Taney County health director. “But in light of the fact that COVID-19 is just here and it’s a part of our world now, we have got to help our businesses find a way to live with it.”
Wearing masks: ‘a rights conversation’
Marshall said Branson businesses have taken the coronavirus threat seriously with many submitting their reopening plans to the county for review.
She encourages visitors and locals alike to wear masks in public and to stay home when sick.
“Of course down here it unfortunately turns into a rights conversation,” Marshall said. “But really we all in this county have a responsibility to keep each other safe — so that’s what it comes down to. We are asking people to please be responsible, please help protect the people around you because you never know who is next to you.”
“We know you are tired, we know this isn’t fun,” the Taney County health director said. “We know face masks aren’t comfortable. But please, for the sake of our county and everybody around us, please just stay the course — this is temporary.”
While many stores had provided their employees with masks, few visitors wore them in public this week.
Inside a Main Street shop on Wednesday, two visitors from Kansas complained about government-imposed shutdowns, speculating that the pandemic might have been an intentional plot to hurt President Donald Trump’s re-election prospects.
For weeks, many of these shops have been closed.
“It feels like it’s been one long winter,” said Meghan McAuley, who just returned to work at a quilt store on Main Street.
Willie and Pam Schroeder arrived at the Branson Cafe after an 800-mile trip from Wisconsin on their three-wheeled Harley Davidson. Both said they felt safe dining out and staying in hotels during the pandemic.
“This seems pretty open,” Pam Schroeder said.
Her husband said the two wanted to get out of town for a few days and planned to ride farther south into Arkansas. He said he thought government lockdowns were “ridiculous” and believed the pandemic had been “overplayed.”
“To run people out of business isn’t fair. It’s socialism,” Willie Schroeder said. “It isn’t what the United States should be about. The stores should be able to run their business as they see fit, whether they demand masks or whatever. But it isn’t for the federal government to run people out of business.”
While traffic is increasing, Beth Burgess said she doesn’t know what to expect for her two antique malls on Main Street.
They opened Tuesday and were busy. But on Wednesday, only a handful of customers wandered around the booths, which sell everything from vintage china to used books.
“I think this weekend’s going to tell everybody a lot,” Burgess said.
Branson expects lots of local travel
Extensive surveys of potential visitors over the last two months have been mostly positive, said Jeff Seifried, president and CEO of the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce. Market surveys show strong demand for travel to Branson, particularly within a 300-mile radius, which includes Kansas City, St. Louis and northwest Arkansas.
“Every data set we see shows Branson is going to really have a strong end to the year,” he said. “Because folks are going to really want to control their environment when it comes to travel.”
Hotels that are open have started to see reservations bounce back for Memorial Day weekend, Seifried said, but not to ordinary levels.
“The reality is every business in Branson has been greatly impacted by this,” he said. “The small mom and pops can’t hold on in a forced closure scenario and frankly neither can the large companies.”
It’s unclear how much Branson’s hotel and vacation rentals have bounced back. The Branson Area Lodging Association did not respond to requests for comment. Airbnb officials declined to share any local data on reservations, though a quick search of the site found nearly 150 rentals available for Friday to Monday.
The 12-story Hilton hotel at the Branson Convention Center recently reopened, but its vast, two-story lobby was mostly empty this week, save for the two staffers on hand.
Chris Luth, who owns eight vacation rentals in Branson, said he expects vacation homes and condominiums to prove more popular this summer as tourists look to spread out.
“You’re not passing people in the hallways. It’s isolated. I tend to think it’s a little safer,” he said.
His guests started canceling reservations in the middle of March, though that’s started to rebound: his condos were all booked for Memorial Day weekend.
But travelers are more likely to book closer to their time of travel than in year’s past. And his units will stay empty for longer as he follows voluntary guidance from Airbnb that calls for leaving units vacant for 72 hours between stays.
While it’s unclear how many of Branson’s attractions and shows will reopen, he said many people just want to get away for a few days.
“They’re coming from closer,” Luth said. “Instead of coming from Wisconsin, Texas and Alabama, they’re coming from Kansas City and St. Louis and maybe Tulsa or eastern Oklahoma. They’re just looking for a place that’s close by where they can just relax.”
‘Laughter is the best medicine’
Yakov Smirnoff’s face has been a fixture of Branson billboards and pamphlets for decades.
This year, though, images of that face have a new look — covered in a giant mask.
The stand-up comedian left California two months ago to drive to Branson with his wife.
“We looked at each other and said California is going to close in a day or two and they’re going to put the iron curtain up and then we can’t get out,” he said. “So we packed everything and came here.”
With no venues open in California, Smirnoff added extra shows in Branson this year. Rather than doing about 50 in the fall, he now expects to do some 100 shows this summer and fall. And his show has a new name: “Laughter Rx FDA Approved.”
Like other shows here, his will drastically limit crowds and spread parties far away from each other, leaving plenty of empty seats. That’s difficult for comedy, Smirnoff said, as he’s spent the last five decades telling venue owners to seat audiences close together. Laughter is contagious.
“Now it’s the opposite. We’re making sure they are far away from each other,” he said. “I hope it’s temporary. If we do it safely, people will come. We’ll be leading the country and the world — this little town of Branson, Missouri.”
He said people need to laugh more than ever after spending the last few months stressed out over the pandemic.
“Laughter is the best medicine,” he said. “It might not be a vaccine but still the best medicine. So what’s the downside?”
Smirnoff’s schtick has long focused on his experiences growing up under communism in the Soviet Union — contrasting that to life in modern American culture with lines like “what a country.”
All his new material, though, is about coronavirus.
His opening monologue will start with a joke that describes a childhood during depressing times in the Soviet Union.
“There was a shortage of items in the stores, the government was telling you what you can and cannot do every step of the way and all you can see on TV is propaganda,” he plans to say. “Oh wait, I think I’m describing life in America!”
Before his first show Friday, Smirnoff plans to have staffers dressed as KGB officers interrogating audience members, asking if they had visited a laboratory in Wuhan, China in recent weeks.
“So it should be very funny,” he said. “I don’t know if it will be or not until Friday. That’s the life of a comedian. The audience tells you.”
Branson still a ways from booming
At the Branson Landing pedestrian mall, some stores saw a trickle of business as they began reopening this week. But guests had no trouble getting a table at usually-busy spots like Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen.
A few steps away, the Shrum family took in the views on the sunny shores of Lake Taneycomo.
John Shrum had to drive to nearby Springfield to haul two cars back home to Nashville for work. It’s a task he would normally do on his own, but he brought his wife and 9-year-old daughter along for the trip.
“I’m over it at this point,” Bailey Shrum said of the coronavirus.
The family enjoys quick car trips and doesn’t plan to curb their travel this summer. In June, they plan to drive to Biloxi and Laurel, Mississippi. And just a couple of weeks ago, they drove up to Gatlinburg.
“This reminds me a lot of Gatlinburg,” John Shrum said. “I believe Dolly Parton owns a lot of this place, too.”
They said they felt safe traveling and believed the coronavirus threat had been overhyped.
“I believe the virus is real,” John Shrum said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of them.”
About 15 minutes away, traffic grew steadily at BillyGail’s Cafe, a log-cabin themed breakfast joint in Stone County near Silver Dollar City.
“We’ve been rockin’ and rolling,” said co-owner Josh Rasmussen. “I think people are ready to get back to normal.”
Back to normal, for now, includes hand sanitizer on every table inside BillyGail’s. Servers wear gloves and masks and tables have been spaced apart.
At full capacity, Rasmussen’s restaurant seats 190 people. These days, with the adjustments made for social distancing, it runs about 90 or so. His business is down about half.
He doesn’t expect a stellar Memorial Day weekend, but he’s optimistic that things are moving in the right direction.
“I think it’s going to be busier than last weekend,” Rasmussen said. “But I think there’s still going to be a time before Branson gets back to where it was as far as tourism goes.”
Socially distanced performances
The Duttons, a three-generation family music act, opened on May 16 after two months without any income. CEO Sheila Dutton said the family wanted to get the business back up and running to help get visitors used to the idea that Branson was reopening.
“The shows are a real driver in this community, so we feel like even if we lose money we will open,” she said.
The 850-seat theater on the Branson strip will only seat about 250 to 300 people with measures in place to spread groups apart.
“We were thrilled when we sold out and had to turn people away on Saturday,” Dutton said. “Granted, that was with 6-foot distancing. So it wasn’t exactly a sellout, but under the new rules it was a sellout.”
The Duttons haven’t brought back their entire staff and the family members have taken pay cuts to help weather the storm. Sheila Dutton said grandkids have pitched in with maintenance projects like painting at the family’s nearby Dutton Inn.
“Fortunately we have a big, willing family,” she said.
But she said other shows in town will have a tougher time turning a profit with smaller crowds.
The Duttons would normally run five shows a week in the summertime. But for now, they plan to offer three shows and see how things go. Audience members are encouraged to bring or buy a face mask, but not required.
At the end of the family’s first show, Sheila Dutton was on stage and asked the crowd if they felt safe and happy during the performance.
“And everybody started cheering and applauding,” she said.
Branson fears second wave of cases
Health officials in the Branson area plan to work the weekend monitoring activities across both counties. If residents report businesses or restaurants not adhering to restrictions, health departments will check it out.
For Pam Burnett, administrator of the Stone County health department, this next phase will require extensive education. Whether it’s working with businesses to make sure spacing is adequate or encourage everyone, especially visitors, to put on a mask.
“This is going to be a concern for quite a while, even going into the fall and winter months,” Burnett said. “Actually, until there’s a vaccine to kind of help us to fight that off.”
In Taney County, Marshall and her staff will be watching certain metrics this weekend and in the coming weeks.
“We’re prepared to raise the red flag if we need to,” Marshall said. “We’re hoping we don’t need to, but we are prepared to if it comes to that.”
No doubt many businesses in the Branson area worry about a second wave of cases that could shut things down again.
Mayor Akers, who grew up in Branson and is its biggest booster, shares that fear. He said he and other leaders across the Branson area know there will be “flare ups” of the virus.
“If we’re prepared we can contain them,” Akers said. “We don’t want to even think about the fact that we would have to close it again.
“We don’t have a chance for a second reopening of Branson and expect any kind of year this year. If we have to close down, it’s going to take a while for trust to be built back up.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 11:39 AM.
