Savannah Chamber

28 per year and a 10-year development plan to double capacity. Development continues on the 104-acre Northeast Georgia Inland Port in Hall County with capacity up to 150,000 TEUs annually. Construction of the roughly $140 million facility will begin in the first half of 2022 and take about two years to complete. This project will create a direct rail between Hall County's 320 manufacturers and the port of Savannah. Lastly, the billion-dollar Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP) remains on track for completion. The outer harbor dredging is complete, and the final leg of the project is dredging of the inner harbor channel in the Savannah River. Over the life of the project, it will generate savings for the nation amounting to $282 million per year with a return on investment of $7.30 for every dollar invested in the project. Tourism The leisure and hospitality sector, which includes accommodations, food services, arts, entertainment, and recreation, has historically been one of the fastest growing (about 3.5% annually) sectors since the post-recession employment low in 2010. The sector provides employment for nearly 25,000 workers, making it the third largest employment sector in the regional economy. The leisure and hospitality sector was decimated by the pandemic and restrictions on business trade in 2020. The sector lost nearly 50% of its employment base, and as the close of 2021 draws near, remarkable recovery to 96% of its pre-pandemic level has been achieved. The strength of the regional economy in 2022 will depend on closing the remaining pandemic employment gap (about 2,000 workers). Full recovery by year-end or early 2023 is potentially attainable and would add about one percentage point to regional employment growth. At the start of the pandemic, Visit Savannah deftly adjusted and deployed a modified pandemic-necessitated marketing strategy to maintain contact with potential visitors through the early stages of the pandemic when travel was severely limited and to encourage locals to re-discover Savannah and support area businesses. The marketing strategy evolved to attract nearby visitors from southeastern drive-in markets, and then to include very targeted non-stop fly-market cities in the northeast and Midwest. The campaign proved to be very successful as hotel/motel room rentals and boardings at the airport practically doubled in 2021 as compared to 2020. Although occupancy rates in the historic district in Savannah remain about 6% to 10% below pre-pandemic levels, room rates increased to more than offset the decline in total hotel rooms sold. The recovery in the tourism and hospitality industry is important in its own right for workers directly employed in the sector, but the increasing number of visitors is also an important source of customers, revenue, and jobs in regional retailers, restaurants, specialty gift shops, tourism-related manufacturers, and other service providers. The importance of the tourism industry in contributing to the diversity and richness of offerings in these sectors available to local residents is easily overlooked, but critical, especially in a regional market the size of Savannah MSA. The sector's forecast is encouraging for 2022. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector is expected to recover from the pandemic toward the end of 2022 or early 2023. While the ongoing pandemic is a potential disruptor, the likelihood of business shutdowns is very much diminished as society learns to cope with new dimensions of life-style and as vaccinations retain their efficacy to substantially reduce the risk of severe illness. As for the post-pandemic economy, as people become more comfortable with traveling and socializing again, the Hostess City will be ready to welcome them. Health Services The regional health care sector continues to be a stalwart of economic consistency and growth since 2007. This sector is resistant to cyclical downturns and experienced fewer job losses during both the current pandemic recession and the Great Recession (2007-09). As of November, the sector has bounced back to approximately 99% of its pre- pandemic employment level. Health services employs approximately 26,000 workers in the seven-county combined

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