Amid outbreak, South Carolina officials seek safe ways to draw visitors

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A week into the summer season that typically drives South Carolina’s robust tourism economy, finding ways to safely draw visitors to the state amid the coronavirus outbreak is top-of-mind for officials discussing the state’s reopening.

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Helen Hill is CEO of the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. She told a state Senate panel Tuesday the economic downturn spawned by the outbreak has been, for the tourism industry, “certainly a depression.”

Hill stressed a need to harness interest from what she called the “drive market,” or tourists who would be driving to the state instead of using air travel, which is still dramatically down since the outbreak began.

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