09/21/2020
The tourism industry has been hit hard by COVID-19. While I understand and support many of the travel and gathering restrictions that have been put in place, I also feel that walking tours in particular (which have been restricted to 10 people) have been treated unfairly when compared to trolley companies (18 to 20 people). They've been reduced by half. We've be been reduced to between 1/3rd and 1/8th (Figuring that in busy season we get between 30 and 80 people per tour and an average of 50 people per tour in Salem, with multiple tours a night in Salem many nights). We've raised prices for our walking tours to compensate, but we obviously can't raise prices by a factor of 8. While we do have our stores and our small museum, there are of course capacity limits there as well.
And then there are the social, political, and economic aspects of 2020. People have less income, so they have less disposable income to spend on recreation. Science and fact have become political and people object to the common courtesies of mask wearing and social distancing. And then there are the social aspects. The need to be more inclusive, to tell the whole story, to make sure not to celebrate slave owners and racists, which has existed for some time, has come to a head and must now be dealt with. As a former employee of ours pointed out, we should have dealt with this issue earlier. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the bandwidth until recently to deal with that and when we were about to, COVID-19 happened.
Despite the challenges presented by the global pandemic, we are moving forward with several projects, working with other professionals in our field, to do the following:
1) Create a Black History tour that will be offered in person, and that may be adapted into a virtual interpretive program. This program will cover topics to include slavery in Colonial Boston, the Triangle Trade, lives of free blacks in Boston, and the abolition movements in Boston specifically and Massachusetts as a whole.
2) Adapt our tours to be more inclusive of women and minorities in the scope covered by our tours (Colonial Boston, the American Revolution, History of Salem and Plymouth) and to be as honest as possible when telling the stories of historical figures who owned slaves, were involved in the slave trade, or who by action or inaction, supported slavery in the US. We will also me making sure that the story of Boston's involvement in the Triangle Trade is told.
3) Create video programming that can be accessed from anywhere, extending our reach to individuals, families, schools, and homeschool groups who can't currently attend in person tours.
Thank you to all of the visitors and locals who have supported us during these troubling times, and thank you to all of our staff who have worked so very hard under extreme conditions.
David J Samuels
Managing Partner
The Histrionic Academy LLC
