22 to Watch in Rhode Island in 2022: Evan Smith

22 to Watch in Rhode Island in 2022: Evan Smith

For the past two years, tourism has been crushed in Rhode Island and even the global destination of Newport.

Prior to the pandemic, Newport was enjoying a tourism boom. It was piling up global award after global award from National Geographic to Conde Nast.

Prior to COVID, Evan Smith, the President & CEO of Discover Newport was enjoying the best of times.

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But, as the pandemic swept through the Northeast in 2020, Newport was slammed.

By May of 2020, Smith told GoLocal, “We predict that regional travel will be the first one to come back — ie people aren’t going to take long vacations this summer, I think people are going to travel within 200-400 mile.  We’re thinking from a marketing and promotion standpoint is to market in our backyard and have everybody in Rhode Island enjoy their state."

“I think it’s going to take us a year or two years to recover from where we are now,” said Smith, but added that there was one advantage for Rhode Islanders.

“This is going to be a great time for Rhode Islanders to have Rhode Island for themselves,” said Smith. 

After the brutal summer of 2020, Newport saw a rebound in the summer of 2021 -- new hotels, the return of tourists, but now, Newport and the rest of the state's tourism industry must meander through the Delta and Omicron variants.

Smith now must help one of Rhode Island's most important industries rebound from yet another wave of the pandemic.