Member-only story
Welcome to Maine — Now Go Home!
I started writing this story a few weeks ago, when President Trump was scheduled to visit the Puritan Medical Products Plant here in Maine. A great photo op for him, a lost day of production for the swab manufacturer (I understand they worked Saturday to make up the loss of manufacturing while the president was there). People usually don’t come to Maine to tour our manufacturing facilities, they come here for vacation. This year thanks to the Covid-19 crisis, a vacation in Maine has been promoted by our tourism bureau with mixed messages. Yes, you are welcome to come for a visit. You will have to quarantine yourself for 2 weeks or show that you’ve had a negative Covid test within 72 hours of arriving, prior to getting over our border. If you live in Vermont or New Hampshire, these rules don’t apply, you have the same cooties as we do, so you’re OK to share them. We just don’t want the one’s from elsewhere, especially those from Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Connecticut, and we really don’t want the ones from New York. Oh no, we are asking you tourists to stay home, but if you do come bring lots of cash, we need it. How in the world you’ll be able to spend it, well that’s the hard part.
This mixed message, which is being sent about travel in general, has the tourism industry in a pickle. This sector in Maine employs over 100,000 people in the state and accounts for about three billion in…
