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V O L . X X V I N O. X X V O C T O B E R 1 9 , 2 0 2 0 18 M I D C O A S T / D OW N E A S T F O C U S COD COVE INN, EDGECOMB / CEDAR CREST, CAMDEN Putting on a happy face in Edgecomb ed Hugger and his wife, Jill, are originally from Michigan and have been in Maine since 1986. ey are relative newcomers to the hotel business, having owned the 28-room Cod Cove Inn in Edgecomb since 2013 and the 37-room Cedar Crest, which also has a restaurant, in Camden since 2018. "Business has been picking up at both of our properties," Ted Hugger reports in early October. A serial entrepreneur on his seventh business who also serves as a selectman in Edgecomb, Hugger says they run the inns on different business models, with the Cod Cove Inn open year-round and the Cedar Crest as a seasonal property. Even with hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to get through the pan- demic, Hugger predicts that "it's going to take a long time to dig out of this hole that we're in." He has also been grappling to make sense of a confusing application for grant funding from the Maine Economic Recovery Grant Program. He likens it to a calculus exam, and says there's still a lot of confusion in the hotel industry about who is and who is not allowed to travel into Maine under state rules. "Try explaining to someone on a farm in Iowa why they can't come to Maine without a COVID test, when someone from Boston or New York City can come and go as they please," he says. "Makes no sense." Yet he does not let that sentiment get in the way of service at his hotels, saying, "at's what we do. Any time there's any kind of hardship in this busi- ness, you put on a happy face, you make the best of it, and you do what you have to do to make sure guests have a spec- tacular experience." BAR HARBOR INN Sticking with optimism in Bar Harbor pbeat is a choice. e alterna- tive is not very productive at this point … Optimism wins all, so we're sticking with it." at's the word from Jeremy Dougherty, general manager of the Bar Harbor Inn, who plans to carry that optimism through the holiday season and beyond. e 153-room establishment, located on eight acres overlooking Frenchman Bay, opened about two months behind schedule this year on June 1. "June was abysmal," Dougherty recalls, with occupancy rates hovering at around 16% instead of in the 80s or 90s, before picking up in the second half of July and August but still well below normal. Still, he says, "it could have been worse." Speaking more generally about the Bar Harbor tourism business, he notes that it's all leisure travel without any corporate or convention business like other markets he has worked in. He's also pleased with the large number of guests from in-state this year, saying, "Maine really showed up this year." On the workforce front, the hotel has operated well below capacity, due to factors from health concerns and an inability to hire international workers on temporary J-1 and H2B visas this year. "Everybody was completely strapped on staff, and if one person gets a sniffle you have to send them home and you lose them for a week," he says. While the workforce count would typically be around 160 to 170, it was at 150 in late September. On the plus side, Dougherty says that having fewer people made it easier to provide on-site housing. While the Bar Harbor Inn would normally wrap up for the season the day after anksgiving, this year's plan is to make a go of it through Jan. 3. "It's not going to do much to make up for it," Dougherty says of the shorter sea- son, "but it helps keep some of our staff a little bit longer … We're going to give it a shot." Plans include a "really great Santa and Mrs. Claus," carriage rides and live rented reindeer that Dougherty expects to touch down well before Christmas. "Everybody has had enough time to be depressed, so now we make adjustments and start planning ahead," he says. R e n e e C o r d e s , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r w r i t e r, c a n b e r e a c h e d a t r c o r d e s @ m a i n e b i z . b i z a n d @ r s c o r d e s » C O N T I N U E D F RO M PA G E 1 6 "U Everybody has had enough time to be depressed, so now we make adjustments and start planning ahead. — Jeremy Dougherty Bar Harbor Inn Any time there's any kind of hardship in this business, you put on a happy face, you make the best of it, and you do what you have to do to make sure guests have a spectacular experience. — Ted Hugger Cod Cove Inn and Cedar Crest T P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F C E DA R C R E S T P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F C O D C OV E I N N F I L E P H O T O / L A U R I E S C H R E I B E R P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F C O D C OV E I N N Cod Cove Inn in Edgecomb. Cedar Crest Inn in Camden. Ted and Jill Hugger own Cod Cove Inn and The Cedar Crest. The Bar Harbor Inn is extending its season until January.

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