Lawmakers discuss pandemic’s toll on tourism

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com

A group of state lawmakers, including a few from the Mon Valley, visited Kennywood Wednesday morning.
But they weren’t there to fill up on Potato Patch fries or Golden Nugget dip cones, nor were they there for the personal joy of screaming and throwing their hands in the air on coasters like The Phantom’s Revenge, The Steel Curtain or The Jack Rabbit.
Rep. Nick Pisciottano, a West Mifflin Democrat who sits on the state House Tourism Committee, was joined Wednesday by state House Democratic Policy Committee chair Rep. Ryan Bizzarro of Erie County, as well as Rep. Austin Davis, a McKeesport Democrat who attended in his role with the Allegheny County Delegation, and other members of the policy and tourism committees.
After getting a tour of the park, the lawmakers and Kennywood officials sat down for a round table discussion about the impacts of the pandemic on Pennsylvania’s tourism.
“Tourism is the state’s second largest industry, and many people don’t realize that,” Pisciottano said, adding that it runs a neck and neck race with agriculture.
“Places like Kennywood are economic drivers for the region,” Pisciottano said, adding that “In the aftermath of COVID, we wanted to sit down with a place like Kennywood to understand what kind of policies would help these people recover from the pandemic, what’s working, what they need help with.”
Bizzarro said tourism is also a large industry in Allegheny County.
“The economic impact of tourism in Allegheny County alone is more than $6.5 billion dollars,” he said, adding that tourism is “a huge industry” in the Greater Pittsburgh area, and that Kennywood and Sandcastle add to those figures.
“With part of our recovery effort and how we’re going to spend the remainder of these CARES (Act) dollars, it’s important to go to places like this to see what we can do to help them and help lift them up to bring people into the region again now that it’s safe,” Bizzarro said. “We’re looking at what policies could best benefit them or what kind of grants we can help them with moving forward to help these regions across the commonwealth survive and drive again.”
Pisciottano said the 124-year-old park “is a great success story.”

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