With travel to the island almost nonexistent, and businesses hunkering down to weather a month or more of closure, Hilo museums are struggling to remain solvent.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, nonessential businesses throughout the state are shut down until at least April 30, as per a March declaration from Gov. David Ige. That list of nonessential businesses includes museums, many of which receive the majority of their traffic from off-island visitors.
The Pacific Tsunami Museum closed down in March after laying off its five employees, said its CEO Marlene Murray. But the museum still is accruing bills that must be paid, and without revenue, the nonprofit-funded museum’s future is shaky.
“I fully expect to be unemployed by next week,” Murray remarked on Thursday.
The East Hawaii Cultural Center has not laid off any of its contracted employees, but remains “in danger of going broke,” said Executive Director Carol Walker.
Both institutions could be eligible for recovery aid through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act — commonly called the CARES Act — which provides economic assistance to businesses struggling during the mandated closure. Walker said she has submitted applications for various federal support programs, but was unsure which, if any, the cultural center is eligible for.
“We’re certainly going to find out, I guess,” Walker said.
Barbara Moir, president and executive director of the Lyman Museum, said she submitted applications for support, but was more optimistic about the survivability of her museum. The Lyman Museum has not yet laid off any of its 11 employees, who continue to work either from home or with limited office time, she said.
“I think we can take it at least into May,” Moir said, adding that emergency paid leave through the Families First Coronavirus Response Act can cover two weeks of paid sick leave for her employees, alleviating that burden from the museum.
After that, employees may start using their own accrued sick leave, and then resort to unpaid leave, although Moir said it would be a shame if the situation comes to that.
“We want to keep our people on payroll as long as we can,” Moir said. “It all depends on how long this lasts.”
Unfortunately, how long the lockdown will last is an open question. While Ige’s declaration orders businesses to remain closed until the end of April, a recent study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington predicted that the peak of the outbreak in Hawaii will occur around early May, which would likely necessitate an extension of the lockdown.
But even if all goes well and the state can return to business as usual in May, tourist-dependant businesses will still be struggling.
“The state did such a good job of getting visitors to stop coming here … how long is it going to take for tourism to come back?” Murray asked.
Murray pointed out that, even if the coronavirus disappears from the planet at the end of April, visitors will still need time to plan trips to the island, and with the downturn in the global economy, such a trip may not be feasible for many.
Meanwhile, she went on, cruise ships — whose passengers make up a substantial percentage of the tsunami museum’s visitors — might be even more unpopular after multiple high-profile cases of COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships in recent months.
Walker said the cultural center doesn’t depend on off-island visitors at all, as admission to the center is free, and events tend to focus on the local community instead.
“We’re doing our best to look at this as an opportunity,” Walker said.
“We’re trying to decide how to seize the moment and have new and creative programs when we open again.”
Moir said Lyman Museum staff are taking the extended closure to conduct deep cleanings of the museum and mission house, both for sanitation purposes and to make them more attractive to visitors when and if it is able to reopen.
“We’re all just anxious to go back to the bad old normal,” Moir said. “We miss the public, we miss showing people what Hilo was like 150 years ago.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.