Tall Ships Provide Boost To Uneven Tourism Season

A tourism season that has been a bit uneven so far got a big boost from the visit of the tall ships to Portland this month. “It was wildly successful,” Greg Dugal, executive director of the Maine Innkeepers Association, said of the three-day event. “The hotels were sold out – all the hotels in the Portland region.” Dugal said the bounty extended beyond the hotels and motels to restaurants – he saw crowds at all the restaurants he went by in the city on the night of July 18, the day the tall ships staged their “parade of sail” and arrived in Portland Harbor. “It was just insane,” he said.