Recent shootings have no immediate impact on tourism

The Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau said it has not seen an immediate drop in tourism following recent shootings.

The bureau has been measuring visitor’s perception of safety for the past four years. It is an annual measure.

“Columbia, we’ve always branded our self as a community that is open, and welcoming and safe and all of our visitor surveys reflect that visitors do feel that way. That they feel welcomed. That they feel safe in our destination,” said Communications Manager Megan McConachie.

She said during times where there is large amounts of violence, it is important for the city to be transparent.

“I think as long as the information that’s out there, you know, is shared and open that visitors, we haven’t really heard that they feel any sort of trepidation about visiting,” she said.

“I think the fact that a lot of these incidents had, you know, they were very targeted incidents. They weren’t really random. I think that knowing that information visitors are very understanding in the fact that sometimes those things happens in cities all over,” she said.

McConachie said it could be too soon to tell if the recent violence has had an impact on tourism because it can take some time measure.

“I mean it could particularly take a number of months if there were to be an impact,” she said.

She said the bureau believes communication is important when it comes to these types of instances. Even though it has not seen any immediate impacts it will continue to follow them.

KMIZ 2019