Lawmakers, Businesses Say Worker Visa Restrictions Will Harm Maine Tourism Industry
Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Photo by Andrew Malone
Summer resorts around the nation are bracing for a tough season — not because the tourists won’t come, but because the workers might not. The reinstatement of a cap on visas for temporary workers has some in the hospitality industry predicting catastrophe.
Oqunquit is pretty quiet right now. But Sarah Diment, owner of the Beachmere Inn, says come summer a surge of tourists transforms it into a bustling New England ocean resort colony. And they are accompanied by an influx of foreign workers.