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Let’s make up for the tourists

“It’s going to be really, really be bad for us,” Pam Bensman, owner of Bensman’s Long Lake Market, told News staff writer Crystal Nelson for a recent story on how communities are worrying about the loss of most summer festivals this year.

Rogers City’s Nautical Fest. Long Lake Lights Festival. Maritime Festival. Michigan Brown Trout Festival scaled back. Alpena fireworks 50-50 at best. No Posen Potato Fest. Blues Fest at least postponed.

For a region that is increasingly building its economy on tourism, the cancellation of so many tourist draws over coronavirus fears has the potential to be devastating.

But we can help soften the blow.

As Gov. Gretchen Whitmer eases stay-at-home orders in the coming weeks and we get the chance to return to work, we encourage every reader who is able to do all they can to support local businesses. Carry out from a local restaurant one more time this week. Pick up a birthday present from a local retailer. Shop at a local grocer. Subscribe to your local paper. If relatives visit from out of town, maybe help them stay in a local hotel instead of putting them up in your guest room or crashing on your couch.

We know that many of us are hurting, economically, either because we’re laid off or we have unexpected medical bills, or both, or more.

But, in the long term, we improve the chances of improving our economic fortunes if we continue to support each other.

Let’s do all we can to make up for the tourists who won’t come this summer.

(THE ALPENA NEWS)

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