The effects of the low turnout at the Harley bike week reached far past businesses and store owners in Myrtle Beach.
In fact, some businesses in the Pee Dee say their sales suffered drastically because of the lack of bikers headed toward the beach.
Doug’s Harley-Davidson officials say they saw a big decrease in the amount of people coming in to have their motorcycles serviced, as well as the sales of motorcycles and other products during bike week.
In addition to the lower sales, they also say that those bikers who did come in, were not pleased with this year’s event.
"It used to be very hectic, but this year right here, it was just like a regular, ordinary week pretty much," said Doug Guynn of Doug's Harley-Davidson.
Many motorcyclists bypassed the city limits in Myrtle Beach, and chose to spend their money elsewhere.
"We rode all the way down to Georgetown, and then from Georgetown we went to North Myrtle Beach, but went around the city of Myrtle Beach as a consequence of their policies. We chose not to spend any time or any dollars down in the city," said motorcyclist John Jebaily.
Officials at Doug's Harley-Davidson say that economic impact trickled all the way into the Pee Dee as well.
Officials say they did not anticipate the smaller crowds, and smaller sales that they saw.
"We were kind of expecting, you know, hopefully there would be more people down there of course, cause it really does drum more business up. They're so busy down there that a lot of people do come back up to get work done on their motorcycles. But it wasn't anything like we expected, it really kind of hurt a little bit," said Guynn.
Officials at Doug’s say they ordinarily sell multiple motorcycles during the event, but this time around, only sold about three.
They’re hoping that Myrtle Beach officials will make adjustments to the ordinances, which would hopefully bring more people back to the beach, next year.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement