Golden Triangle Regional Airport and a handful of area businesses have formed a coalition aimed at reassuring travelers to the Golden Triangle area that the airport, rental cars, hotels and restaurants they’re using are taking rigorous safety precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
GTRA announced the formation of Mississippi’s Trusted Triangle in a press release Friday. Each business in the coalition has written safety procedures that “meet or exceed” guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Mississippi State Department of Health.
“The message is that you can come to the Golden Triangle, and from the airlines through the airport through the rental cars through hotels through the restaurants and back, every one of those places you stay will have written and enforced COVID procedures,” said Mike Hainsey, GTRA’s executive director and CEO.
The businesses who have joined the group are the airport; Delta Airlines; Enterprise Rent-a-Car; National Car Rental; Eat With Us Restaurant Group, which includes Harveys, Sweet Peppers Deli, The Grill, Bulldog Burger and Smackers; and six area hotels owned and managed by Atlanta-based Peachtree Hotel Group, including Courtyard by Marriott Columbus, Courtyard by Marriott Starkville MSU, Fairfield Inn and Suites Columbus, Hampton Inn and Suites Columbus, Hampton Inn and Suites Starkville and Hilton Garden Inn Tupelo.
The businesses that have joined the coalition and links to their safety standards can all be found on the coalition’s website at https://mstrustedtriangle.com. Hainsey said it is up to businesses how they plan to advertise their involvement in the coalition, though the airport will have digital signage in the terminal.
Hainsey said while business travel is down about 80 percent since the pandemic began, there are still plenty of leisure travelers coming to the area. Those travelers want to know what businesses in the area are practicing COVID-19 safety standards.
Hainsey said he got the idea for the coalition in November, when he traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, for a conference. During the conference, one of Delta’s vice presidents spoke about the airline’s safety standards, such as how the airline still keeps one open seat between passengers and other standards the airline has set for itself to keep passengers safe.
“He was talking about how their concern isn’t just the airplane, … and not even the airport,” Hainsey said. “He said when someone travels, they want to know through their entire experience that they’re going to feel comfortable and feel safe that people are dealing with COVID the way they should.
“It struck home because here I was in Cincinnati at a conference, and I was feeling the exact same thing,” he added. “I was staying at the Hyatt, so I knew they had good, specific, written policies. I found a restaurant nearby that I knew that enforced all the rules, so I went to it three nights in a row. The only time I felt concern was on the … ride to the airport, … a rideshare company, because that person had a mask down around his neck.”
Peyton Scrivner, director of sales and marketing for Eat With Us, said their organization’s executives had been looking for a way to get the word out about their rigorous safety standards as well.
“(For) people who are traveling to this area, we just wanted them to be able to go to one place and provide a way for them to see, ‘Hey, you see we’re following the correct safety measures. You know you can trust to go to these places,'” Scrivner said.
She said Eat With Us restaurants, in addition to following CDC guidelines for restaurants, is taking the “extra mile” of taking employees’ temperatures when they come into work, setting timers to ensure the restaurant is being sanitized every 30 minutes, while still enforcing mask- and glove-wearing.
Likewise, Hainsey said the airport is cleaned between every flight, and hotels in the Peachtree Group put up a seal on the hotel room doorways after they’ve been cleaned, so staff always know which rooms have and haven’t been sanitized in preparation for guests.
He said the initial rollout of the coalition was limited to large organizations that manage many area businesses, but he wants other local businesses and tourism bureaus to join as well — provided they practice the same strict standards. He said he has already talked to Nancy Carpenter, CEO and executive director for the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau, who indicated her organization would be willing to participate in the coalition as well.
Hainsey said the coalition is just trying to promote safety.
“It’s all about safety,” Hainsey said. “People are afraid to fly. They’re afraid to travel, whether it be driving or flying or whatever, with good reason in the early stages (of the pandemic). … Now that we know what steps to take to keep people safe on their travel, we’re taking it.”
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