CROCKER ART MUSEUM REOPENS

Crocker Art Museum opened back up for the first time in seven months. There are five new exhibitions and guests are asked to purchase timed ticket reservations online, according to KCRA 3 News.

“Things are a little bit different but thankfully they aren’t difficult,” Christine Calvine at Crocker Art Museum said. “We’re operating at about 25% capacity in compliance with county restrictions. But it’s a 150,000 square-foot museum, so there’s plenty of room to social distance.”

Like every industry, the pandemic also challenged museums, which plan years in advance for exhibitions.

“So many exhibitions are booked two, three years in advance,” Calvine said. “Nationwide COVID caused a huge disruption and a large domino effect that impacted art travel and exhibitions well into 2023.”

Crocker Art Museum also suffered layoffs and unprecedented financial losses beyond ticket sales.

“We really took quite a financial hit,” Calvine explained. “It is true that admissions impact us financially by not having the doors open. But we also run a retail store and a café. We do dozens and dozens of weddings and corporate events here every year. There are a number of ways that revenue comes into the museum and sustains us. And having all of those revenue streams shut down at once was very, very impactful to us.”

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California’s tourism industry as a whole is in a dire state. Visit California testified to state lawmakers and said the state was the nation’s top travel destination with a tourism economy five times greater than Hawaii.

Now since February, nearly 4 in 10 jobs in California lost during the pandemic were in leisure and hospitality—which does not include recent Disney layoffs or airline job reductions.

“It’s actually been nine times worse than 9/11, which is a milestone marker for all of us in the industry of how epic crises can get,” Visit California CEO Caroline Beteta said to lawmakers.

And last year was a record for California, nearly $145 billion generated in travel spending, $1.2 million in direct tourism jobs and $12.2 billion in local and state tax revenue.