PA Gov. Tom Wolf last Friday added 4 states to his earlier list of 15 from which travelers visiting or returning to PA must quarantine for 14 days.
The full list of 19 states believed to have higher incidences of COVID-19 than PA now includes:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Nevada
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
PA tourism industry officials hope this quarantine rule will encourage Pennsylvanians to staycation in PA.
A staycationing trend will result in competition for visitors among PA regions. But the PA DCED says its Office of Tourism has no money available to help regional DMOs - which are short of cash because funded by the state's 6% hotel tax, revenues from which have been down 80% since the onset of COVID-19 - with domestic marketing.
Instead, the Office of Tourism is planning to launch a marketing campaign of its own to be named "Pursue Your Hominess" encouraging residents to vacation in PA.
The Office of Tourism's most recent budget (passed in May 2020) provides $7.2M to fund operations, including marketing, for 5 months.
Tourism in rural areas of PA is expected to recover first, as city-dwellers head for the less densely populated countryside.
