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What Can Our Tourism Business Learn from Past Epidemics?

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In 2002, our next guest worked as the tourism development coordinator for Ontario, Canada. His main project was to get the hospitality industry back on track after the SARS virus derailed tourism in the province.  He’s now in our state, in the same industry, working with students at one of our major colleges in the Lowcountry.

Mike Switzer interviews Wayne Smith, chair of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the School of Business at the College of Charleston.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.