Island lodging businesses look at a slow summer

14-day quarantine a deal breaker

- LESLIE LANDRIGAN

STONINGTON—The month of June brings Stage II of Gov. Janet Mills’ rural reopening, along with uncertainty, anxiety and fatalism to the island’s lodging businesses.

Under the governor’s plan, hotels, motels and inns closed since March may reopen starting June 1, but only to Mainers and only to people who have quarantined for 14 days in Maine.

Boyce’s, on Main Street, will be the first to reopen. Owner Barrett Gray will put out the “Vacancy” sign on June 1.

“I was about to have the best spring ever and then COVID happened,” said Gray in a phone interview. His first reservation isn’t until June 7, and he has only a few visitors that week, he said.

Across the state, lodging owners anticipate heavy losses because of restrictions designed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight of 10 lodging and campground owners who responded to a survey in the first week of May anticipated economic losses over 50 percent in 2020; according to the Maine Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, which ran the survey. Six in 10 lodging and campground owners anticipated losses over 70 percent in 2020, according to the survey, which had 1,467 respondents.

Gray said his reservations are strong for July and August, his busiest months.