Don Johansen, front office supervisor for Hotel RL in Baltimore\u2019s Inner Harbor area, a new boutique hotel owned by the Red Lion hotel chain, said bookings are up even with security concerns, but tourists are cautious.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would still get room cancellations because people are still unsure about security in Baltimore,\u201d he said. \u201cEven up to now, I still encounter phone calls with people asking if it\u2019s safe to roam around the city. I can say that tourists have just become more cautious.\u201d<\/p>\n
The murder rate in the city is soaring<\/a>, and just a mile from a bustling downtown and beautiful historic neighborhoods, many Baltimore residents live in poverty, their lives untouched by the tourism dollars.<\/p>\n But the downtown area, although close, seems far away and according to those involved in tourism, relatively safe.<\/p>\n For Sam Rogers, chief marketing officer at Visit Baltimore, negative press about the riots affected Baltimore\u2019s hospitality industry, in a sense that \u201cbeing on the national news created a different perception\u201d for the city. Although Rogers clarified that the unrests weren\u2019t fully culpable for tampering Baltimore\u2019s tourism in April, as spring is naturally an off-peak season.<\/p>\n Rogers said that tourism in Baltimore started to pick up again in the summer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we held fireworks for Fourth of July, it was successful without any glitch,\u201d he said. \u201cBaltimore even hosted baseball games after the unrests and attendance was strong.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of the city\u2019s tourists are East Coasters who drive in for a day or two. It is also a popular convention city and\u00a0home to some of America\u2019s well-known museums, the American Visionary Arts Museum (AVAM) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA).<\/p>\n AVAM founder, Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, \u00a0said that AVAM\u2019s operations suffered \u00a0after the riots, but in September 2015, attendance rose to 27 percent. As a must-see art hub, AVAM has been known to draw visitors to Baltimore from around the globe, who mostly come in to see the museum\u2019s quirky visionary artworks that are often tied with social issues. It has also become a popular weddings venue, catering to more than 70 couples annually.<\/p>\n Hoffberger likened Baltimore\u2019s potential for improvement to that of Medell\u00edn in Colombia, wherein the latter emerged as \u201cInnovative City of The Year\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in 2013, having shed its image as a crime-ridden city to that of a place of burgeoning urban development. She\u2019s planning to host a conference on how Baltimore can emulate Medell\u00edn\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n AVAM founder Rebecca Alban Hoffberger is hands-on with the museum’s operations. She even sometimes acts as a tour guide herself. (Photo by Eugene Y. Santos)<\/p><\/div>\n Museum leaders agree that art does pull in more foot traffic in Baltimore. Nancy Proctor, BMA\u2019s deputy director for digital experience and communications said that 40 to 50 percent of BMA\u2019s visitors come from outside of Baltimore.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily know if they came in solely just for the BMA, but we know that our museum was definitely on one of their (tourists) stops,\u201d said Proctor. \u201cBecause of the importance of our collections, we know certainly that Baltimore is referred to as a city for people who are either art en-thusiasts or scholars.\u201d<\/p>\n Nancy Proctor, BMA\u2019s deputy director for digital experience and communications (Photo by Eugene Y. Santos)<\/p><\/div>\n To date, BMA houses around 95,000 artworks<\/a>, including the largest collection of the works of French artist, Henri Matisse.<\/p>\n Visit Baltimore\u2019s latest fiscal report stated that entertainment comprised 16.1 percent out of $5.2 billion worth of visitor spending behavior last year. Food and lodging were the top two, at 28.3 percent and 22.7 percent respectively.<\/p>\n An emerging trend in tourism is the promotion of social awareness. Hotel RL\u2019s has \u201cProject Wake Up Call\u201d<\/a>. Together with photographer Ian Tong, the hotel wants to raise funds for Baltimore\u2019s Health Care for the Homeless through a series of photos that show signs of homelessness around the city.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Baltimore\u2019s community is doing well, that\u2019s going to drive more business to the hotel, which can mean more job opportunities in Baltimore,\u201d said \u00a0Johansen.<\/p>\n Tourism is proven good business for any city. Last year, the White House released a report<\/a>\u00a0stating that travel and tourism is a major driver of the US economy. President Barack Obama set \u201can ambitious goal of attracting and welcoming 100 million international visitors annually by the end of 2021, who are estimated to spend $250 billion on an annual basis.<\/p>\n While still lagging behind cities like New York City in things to do, more popular chains are coming to the city like Shake Shack. Free yoga sessions and outdoor movie are not hard to find.<\/p>\n![\"AVAM](\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/stateofbaltimore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/10\/22461352706_031518dbf2_z-600x400.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Nancy](\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/stateofbaltimore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/10\/22498217631_6521c2caf0_z-600x400.jpg\")
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