Cherry Blossom trees pre-bloom near the World War II Memorial. Photo by Eli Altman on February 18th 2022.
The nation’s capital is devastated, one of their main sources of revenue, the tourism industry, took a massive blow when the pandemic hit.
By Eli Altman
The emptiness of the tidal basin was jarring. What was once one of the most lively parts of the city, was now one of the quietest. An economy that was vibrant and getting increasingly better every year, turned quiet when the pandemic hit. A city that once welcomed tourists with open-arms, now had to close their doors to international travelers.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival is an annual event celebrating the bloom of the Cherry Blossoms. The Festival takes place in Washington DC along the tidal basin, and also features events that take place around the city.
The Bloom of the Cherry Blossoms is typically announced some time around late February to Early March, and the bloom itself, while hard to predict, is typically around late March to early April.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival started in 1912 when the mayor of Tokyo sent cherry blossom trees to the United States to further enhance the bond between both nations. The festival celebrates both American and Japanese culture to continue the tradition originally created over 100 years ago.
Since then, the Cherry Blossoms have become one of the main attraction points in Washington DC and in the country. In more recent years, DC has consistently broken their own visitor records and the tourism of the cherry blossoms has contributed in large part to that (The Numbers Are In: The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Devastated DC Tourism’s Industry – DCist).
In 2019 DC hosted over 22 million visitors but in 2020 the city projected to host only half of that (The Numbers Are In: The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Devastated DC Tourism’s Industry – DCist ). This was in large part due to the rise of the coronavirus pandemic.
At the onset of the pandemic the city was different, and businesses all around the tidal basin and DC took a massive blow due to the absence of tourism. The city’s economy also had an immense drop in revenue because of tourism in 2020, as they earned $422 million dollars less in revenue when compared to 2019 (The Numbers Are In: The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Devastated DC Tourism’s Industry – DCist).
John Falcicchio, the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development in DC said, “Pre-pandemic, DC saw 10 years of record visitation before the pandemic hit. In 2019, DC welcomed 24.6 million visitors; 22.8 million domestic visitors and 1.8 million overseas visitors. In 2020, there were 13.3 million total visitors, a 46 percent decrease from the previous year. There was a decrease of 55 percent in visitor spending (https://mmgyintel.com/, https://travelmi.com/,https://www.trade.gov/national-travel-and-tourism-office,https://www.commerce.gov/) .” Along with serving as the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, John Falcicchio is also Mayor Bowser’s current Chief of Staff. In his role, John Falcicchio runs the economic development for DC and leads real estate development projects centered around affordable housing (https://dmped.dc.gov/biography/john-falcicchio-deputy-mayor-planning-and-economic-development). When the pandemic hit, John Falcicchio’s role shifted to combating the inequities brought out by the Pandemic. “The pandemic has renewed our emphasis on advancing equitable economic development and addressing the inequities that existed before the pandemic. We are taking an intentional, equity-based approach to sustain businesses, jobs and entrepreneurs by improving access to capital and new business opportunities, with focus on supporting historically marginalized entrepreneurs. We are looking forward through this equity lens to continue advancing the District’s equitable economic recovery. In addition, we will continue working with stakeholders to respond to major changes prompted by the pandemic, including sustained telework, and reimagine our Downtown.”
Tourism reliant industries such as small businesses were drastically impacted by the pandemic, driving many into the ground, “DC is still down 21,000 jobs in hospitality due to the pandemic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 40,100 jobs lost in the District from February 2020 through December 2021, 21,300 (or 53 percent) were jobs in the leisure sector, including arts, accommodations and Food and Beverage.”
With the closure of the Tidal Basin to the public, the National Cherry Blossom Festival had to go virtual for most events. The festival partnered with many different restaurants across the DC area to promote their virtual events, “The Festival supports our local businesses in many of their events. The Festival partnered with 30 local restaurants, businesses, and civic organizations who conducted virtual and hybrid programming in celebration of the Festival. 180 Cherry Picks restaurants also participated with springtime menus and supported the city’s economic recovery. Although foot traffic may have been reduced, the Festival was able to reach brand new audiences virtually and being televised, increasing their engagement and following on social media before, during and after the Festival.”
With a much improved platform and decline in the severity of the pandemic, the National Cherry Blossom Festival will be attended by many either virtually or in-person, “Now that the Festival will be returning to in person events, we are hopeful for higher participation this Spring. For instance, the Festival has nearly 200 Cherry Picks Restaurant participants, over 150 City in Bloom participants, and several participating organizations including 12 featured parks across the Washington, DC area, Maryland and Virginia celebrating the Blossom Kite Festival, and the businesses of the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood who are joining in the Petalpalooza festivities on April 16. With digital and distanced options woven throughout the in-person programming, as well as outreach to both local residents and visitors, the Festival is planning for a celebration that continues to support economic recovery this spring.”
Since DC has eased up on it’s covid restrictions, it is back to promoting tourism in many ways, “We have a campaign that was created in Winter 2020, Shop the District, that would allow for better management of retailer database connecting tourist and local consumers to small local (LBE) DC-based retailers and restaurants. The District was also awarded a $12 million grant to support the recovery and growth of the Travel, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation industries. The funds will support marketing of DC to regional and national visitors, programming for local events, recruitment of large national and international events, workforce development programs to address the shortage of hospitality workers, and technical assistance programs for hospitality small businesses.”
Having built up a virtual platform and promoting in person events, DC is ready for 2022 to be a great and much improved year for tourism, “Due to the extra exposure of the virtual events over the last two years, we anticipate a higher turnout because DC is open! Tourism Economics, a respected industry research company, anticipates up to 20 million domestic visitors in 2022, reaching 87 percent of pre-pandemic domestic visitors’ numbers. However, total overseas visitation to the U.S. will likely not reach 2019 levels until 2025.”
A row of Cherry Blossom trees pre-bloom leading to the Lincoln Memorial along the Tidal Basin. Photo by Eli Altman on February 18th 2022.
A different perspective on the impacts of Covid on the cherry blossoms comes from Richard Bradley, “The impact of covid for someone like myself is really trying to figure out if the festival could survive and as covid hit all the sponsorships went away and that’s how we generate all our money.” Richard Bradley is the current chair of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. Before becoming the chair of the board for the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Richard Bradley ran the downtown DC business improvement district. The National Cherry Blossom Festival was struggling during this time so his company took the festival under their wing, “about 20 years ago when we were starting the business improvement district we sort of adopted the festival because it wasn’t doing that well and we nurtured it back to health and sort of restructured and refocused it’s strength and abilities and now it has a budget of almost 3 million dollars.”
When the pandemic hit the festival’s budget was in jeopardy because of the lack of sponsors. This forced Richard into a role where he had to contemplate whether or not the festival would survive the pandemic, “Amazon was one of our biggest sponsors as well as All Nippon Airways who contributed half a million dollars and when covid hit the revenue couldn’t survive and as an organization we were wondering if we could survive in the coming years.” Richard’s role was not the only aspect of the festival that was impacted by the pandemic. The festival as a whole became a virtual experience. Along with being virtual, the National Cherry Blossom festival set up individualized events all over the city for people to enjoy a much different Cherry Blossom season than anticipated. All the activities and events organized by the National Cherry Blossom Festival were set up to ensure that the festival could make it through the pandemic, “The festival went virtual so we had to create things in people’s neighborhoods to keep them engaged and the real story of the festival was just surviving covid.”
With the absence of sponsors and pressure to match funding from the DC economy, the National Cherry Blossom Festival was in a precarious situation financially. A few years before the pandemic the festival’s budget increased significantly because of funds provided by the DC government celebrating the 100th anniversary of the festival. During this time, the city was providing around 1 million dollars of funding annually for the festival but in turn, the festival had to match it on a one to one dollar basis. “During the pandemic we were concerned because we couldn’t raise the million dollars much less do the match and chairman nicholson was very generous and withdrew the requirement that we had to do the match and the baseline match as well. So we now just got a million dollars straight into the budget so it was life saving.” Before the pandemic, the National Cherry Blossom Festival had a reliable source of income through sponsors and an achievable deal with the DC government. The pandemic forced the National Cherry Blossom Festival to financially rely on the government because their other sources of income were no longer available.
Cherry Blossom trees pre-bloom covering the view of the Washington Monument. Photo by Eli Altman on February 18th 2022.
Events DC, a local organization that attracts tourists to DC for events and conventions, was and still is one of the National Cherry Blossom Festival’s most impactful and reliable sponsors, “Events DC have long provided resources to us because the festival is so important to their business. They really focus on hotel conventions and businesses because that’s where you import money into the city. That’s about 250,000 dollars a year.”
Along with having to consider financial solutions for the pandemic’s impact on the festival, the board and staff of the National Cherry Blossom Festival had to think of safety precautions at the Tidal Basin and what the virtual and individualized events would look like. The transformation of the festival’s events during the pandemic ended up being a crucial decision towards surviving the pandemic, “We went online for a lot of events but we still wanted to celebrate spring because that is the purpose of the festival and to celebrate the values of spring which is about renewal and peacefulness. People think of Washington as a city of power and influence but we’re saying no, Washington is a symbol of change and transformation in a way that spring comes back each year and this is the message of the festival is we have a chance to renew and make things better.”
A Cherry Blossom tree pre-bloom in front of the pacific side of the World War II Memorial. Photo by Eli Altman on February 18th 2022.
Having the safety precautions in place and the increase in sponsorships for the 2022 Cherry Blossom season, the National Cherry Blossom Festival is now fully focused on promoting it’s events and getting the festival back on track to its state before the pandemic in a safe manner, “ For most of our events like the parade we will space everyone out. For our events at the Tidal Basin we will put events on but fewer of them. I haven’t heard of any plans to restrict the crowds at the tidal basin as that is something the park service controls. One of the reasons as to why I’m uncertain is because for the last couple of years as the virus has changed and morphed, regulations changed. So people wait till the last minute to decide the conditions for mask wearing. Not a lot of events will happen indoors so that is one of the reasons as to why we think we can welcome people back.”
The impact of the pandemic on the National Cherry Blossom Festival shows to an extent, what the city of DC would be like without the festival or even without the cherry blossoms.
Without the National Cherry Blossom Festival functioning as normal, DC would and did take a big blow on a major promotional aspect of the city, as the festival and the cherry blossoms have become synonymous with the city and spring.
Due to their impact on the city, Cherry Blossoms are seen as one of the main DC landmarks and attraction points. The National Cherry Blossom Festival creates a vibrant, colorful, and exciting experience out of the Cherry Blossoms to make them more than just a premier landmark.
Cherry Blossom branches pre-bloom facing the Jefferson Memorial along the Tidal Basin. Photo by Eli Altman on February 18th 2022.
With all this in mind, the city of DC and the world are ready for an amazing 2022 Cherry Blossom season and the organizers of the National Cherry Blossom Festival are just as excited,“the message is welcome back and it’s consistent with the message of the cherry blossom festival of renewal and revitalization, this is a chance for us to renew ourselves. In spring we want people to once again join us in a responsible manner.”