BILOXI, Miss. — On the great yawning porch that once belonged to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, two women sit in rockers listening to the cicadas and looking out over Mississippi Sound as they wait for their tour to begin.
Before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, about 200 people arrived each day to visit the house — the only structure on the oak-shaded Beauvoir estate not destroyed by the storm. And that’s just what’s needed to break even.
Tourism in the area has dropped off 20 percent, with just a few visitors on some days since a BP oil well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico.
The situation is mirrored along the Gulf Coast. Beaches have been cleaned of crude, the leak has been plugged, and some cities never had oil wash ashore. Still, tourists stay away from what they fear are oil-coated coastlines — a perception officials say could take years to overcome and cost the region billions of dollars.
“We had Katrina, then the recession, and now we have the oil,” said Rick Forte, executive director of the Beauvoir estate. “It’s hard to overcome this when no one is coming.”
With the summer tourist season winding down, destinations are scrambling to keep businesses afloat and hang on to the region’s 400,000 travel-industry jobs. Some are trying discounts, concerts and celebrity-endorsed commercials inviting residents to visit attractions once seen as havens for out-of-towners.
BP gave millions to the region for tourism promotion — $25 million to Florida and $15 million each to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — but most of that has been spent with little effect.
“Once perceptions are formed, they take quite some time to change,” said Geoff Freeman, executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, a national nonprofit trade association.
The association commissioned a study by the Oxford Economics forecasting group that projected the disaster could cost the region $22.7 billion by 2013. With a $500 million infusion from BP to promote tourism, they estimated that figure could drop to $15.2 billion. The group also said travel to the Gulf Coast wouldn’t rebound until at least 2013.
Communities known for their beaches or charter fishing appear to have suffered most, while a few others managed unexpected increases after an anemic recession year.
New Orleans began 2010 as the country’s top tourist destination, said Kelly Schultz of the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau.
