HELENA — Monday, April 27th, it was back in business for several Montana retail stores that have been closed for a few weeks.
Including, Montana Fly Goods, which also offers fly fishing guides for those that want a little extra experience on the Treasure State waterways.
“People come to Montana to see our wildlife to go down our rivers and we just don’t know how that is going to work out,” said Mike Stocker who is a fly-fishing guide in Montana.
Out of the state tourist, bring in, a reported three billion dollars to the Treasure State, according to the latest study by the Institute of Tourism and Research at the University of Montana.
It’s no secret with the stay at home orders, the tourism industry has been hit hard.
“We rely on people booking earlier in the year, for our summer season in order to know how our season is going to go that has stopped since the stay at home order was put in place, “Stocker said.
w our season is going to go that has stopped since the stay at home order was put in place,“ Stocker said.
Also, when it comes to guides, there are stricture guidelines that are to be followed, including, sanitizing every time someone enters the boat, even if there is a seat change the guide must sanitize the seat.
“I think, it's important to sanitize just to limit the spread of the disease. You know, most of the time people come into the boat. I don’t know them, until I meet them that morning. So, the precautions are a good thing because you don’t know who it at this point has,” he said.
This also follows suit back at the retail store where customers are going to have a slightly different shopping experience.
“We are not going to allow more than five customers in at a time and make sure everybody is keeping that six-foot distance...We are going to have to ask customers, what they would want on these shelves and then one of the employees will be the one touching it and taking it off the peg, sanitizing it and then bringing it up to the register,” said Stocker.
