Tourism Continues Rapid Pace Set In 2011
By Clayton Wallace
Coming on the heels of 2011’s record-breaking tourism numbers, officials up and down the coast are optimistic that 2012 will be record-breaking as well. Martin Owen is the regional marketing director for ResortQuest By Wyndham Vacation Rentals. Owen handles marketing for ResortQuest’s 3,500 rental units from Orlando to the Alabama Gulf Coast. “Things are going very well for the Gulf Coast area,” he said. “We’re up from last year pretty much across the board from Panama City Beach to Gulf Shores.”
Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism CEO Herb Malone said despite a soft start in January and February things are looking great for his lodging partners. “We’re off to a good start. The reservations for March, April, May and summer are all up compared to last year,” he said. “If these trends hold true, our summer season will exceed last year.”
South Walton Tourist Development Council (TDC) Executive Director Dawn Moliterno said her lodging partners expected last year’s trend to continue, but not at the rapid pace they have seen thus far in 2012. “Last year, our numbers were up almost 30 percent over our 2010 numbers. This year’s numbers so far are up almost 30 percent over last year’s numbers,” she said. “We continue to be above projections, and if this trend continues it will be a record-breaking year for this TDC.”
In Panama City Beach, visitors are breaking new records as well. “Life is good. We’re continuing to see record breaking numbers,” Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau (PCB CVB) CEO Dan Rowe said. “Each month from January through April has had record-breaking numbers. Our winter was strong and spring has been equally as strong.”
Although tourism officials are ecstatic with their numbers thus far in 2012, they’re not resting on their laurels. New marketing campaigns, events and promotions are inundating regional markets and beyond. “We were on track to have a record year in 2010 before the oil spill,” Malone said. The spill cost us a year of growth, and one of the only ways to make that up is through aggressive marketing.”
One of the newest marketing ideas Malone has implemented along the Alabama coast is a partnership with the Southeastern Conference. He said the marketing partnership with SEC athletics began last year and continues to be highly successful. The partnership features commercials that tout Alabama’s beaches with well-known SEC figures like Pat Dye, Gene Stallings and Vince Dooley that run during televised SEC athletic contests throughout the year. “We’re continuing that partnership and will announce another big event with the SEC shortly that will take place in late summer,” he said. “I can’t say anything about it now, but just wait—it’ll be great.”
Rowe said the PCB CVB has been hard at work developing a mobile telephone application, and it will be available for download before the summer visitor season. “It’s a destination application for families as they’re preparing to come, while they’re on their way and also once they’re in town. We’re not the first in the country to have a smart-phone app, but I believe we’ll be the first in the region,” he said. “We already have a mobile website, but we wanted to take it to the next level.”
Rowe said the app is not just a list of lodging and attractions. “It goes deeper than that,” he said. “It helps visitors plan the perfect vacation with things like inside tips on how to best navigate our city during peak times.” Rowe said it can be updated easily so if a business wants to offer specials on certain days or only at certain times, they can do so. “If a parasail business finds that they are as busy as they can be one week from noon until 5, but are slack from opening until noon on Mondays, they can easily update the app to reflect a special that will draw visitors to their business on Monday mornings.”
Lee Glaser is an integrated marketing associate for the Emerald Coast CVB. One of the marketing promotions she said has brought much attention to her stretch of the Florida coast, which includes Destin and Fort Walton Beach, is “Boast the Coast.” The promotion consists of wrapping several RVs in a type of shrink wrap with photographs of different scenes and attractions from area businesses and beaches. “We started this last year, and it was a big success,” she said. “We’ve taken the promotion to several different high-profile events such as the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Ky. and CMA Fest in Nashville, Tenn. We’ve encouraged people to come on down to the Emerald Coast and to ‘put a little sand in your soul.’”
Glaser said another promotion that has garnered wide attention is their “America’s Most Deserving Dad” contest. “We had great success last year with ‘America’s Most Deserving Mom,’ which was a very heavy Facebook campaign in which people sent us videos telling us why their mom was deserving of a free beach vacation,” she said. “This year, we decided to give dad his turn on Father’s Day to win a week-long stay at a Destin beach house along with a Jeep Wrangler. The response we’ve received from the public and media outlets has been tremendous.”
Spring and summer just wouldn’t be complete without a full lineup of concerts and festivals up and down the coast. Glaser said the 11th Annual Musical Echoes Festival set for April 20 – 22 at the Landing in Fort Walton Beach is the largest Native American flute festival in the U.S. “We get thousands of tourists that come here from all over the country to see and hear some of the finest Native American flute musicians anywhere,” she said. “It’s a free event that is family-friendly and alcohol-free.”
June 14 will bring the annual “Dancing with Desire” ballroom dance competition to Northwest Florida State College in Niceville. Glaser said the event was begun by former University of Florida quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel as a fundraising event for his Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans. “The event has been so successful, it’s now a fundraising event for some local civic organizations as well,” Glaser said. “It’s sponsored by Fred Astaire Dance Studios, and through their contacts, we’ve had great support from the ‘Dancing with the Stars’ television show.”
Moving up the coast to Alabama, May 18 – 20 will see the Hangout Music Festival hit the stage for the third year with A-list headliners like the Dave Matthews Band, Jack White and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Although it hasn’t been around for a long time, the festival has caught nationwide attention and now competes with other more established spring music festivals such as Bonnarroo in Manchester, Tenn. Malone said the effect the festival—and the estimated 35,000 people per day that attended in 2011 has had on condo rentals along the Alabama coast has been phenomenal. “Festival organizers work with our lodging partners and, as a result, there’s nothing to be had on that weekend,” Malone said. “Condos, hotels and most beach houses are rented that weekend from Foley to Pensacola.”
Malone said there is at least one other important aspect of the Hangout festival—the patrons. “People come from all over the U.S. to the festival,” he said. “Many of these visitors have never heard of the Alabama coast and didn’t even know Alabama had a coast. Their market is not our traditional marketing targets, so any exposure we can get to the Hangout festival patrons is great.”
Malone said the Hangout Festival has taken sellout weekends from three-per-year to four. “You could almost always count Memorial Day, Labor Day and the Fourth of July as sellout weekends,” he said. “The Hangout Festival has given us a fourth sellout weekend and has allowed us to expand our peak season by a week. It has a tremendous impact on our economy.”
There are two things that officials say could put a damper on the expected record-setting summer— weather and gasoline prices. Everyone knows the effect a tropical disturbance can have on a season, and officials up and down the coast said they are praying for good weather throughout the summer season.
The remaining wildcard is gas prices. Rowe and Malone said if gas hovers around the $4-per-gallon mark, they don’t see it having much of an adverse effect on the area’s tourism. However, if prices rise significantly beyond that, it could spell trouble. “Everything but gas seems to be going in our favor. Almost 85 percent of our market is still a drive market,” Rowe said. “However, even a rise of $1 per gallon doesn’t have that great of an effect when you look at the total price of a family vacation.”
Malone looked back to 2008 when record gas prices were in full effect during the summer vacation season. “That year gas prices rose almost $2 per gallon in six to eight months. Our vacationers adapted to that increase,” he said. “If it remains in the $4 range I think our vacationers will adapt this year as well. If it rises to $5 per gallon or higher, all bets are off.”
One of the more pleasant effects of last year’s record tourism numbers and the continuation of those numbers this year is a marked decrease in the level of rate discounting for condo rentals. ResortQuest’s Owen said discounting hurts condo owners in more ways than just monthly cash flow. “At the end of the day someone staying in one of our condos is getting the same vacation as the person in the unit next to them, so the most important thing to keep our customers is the rental experience,” he said. “When you discount, you’re making it so the owners who are providing their properties to the customer can’t afford to improve their properties.” He said that could lead customers to find more improved rentals on their subsequent visits. “We’ve been very careful not to discount across the board,” he said. “We’ve done some tactical discounting, but on the whole, we’re not discounting.”
Rowe said discounting has been “part of the norm” for the past several years, but it seems to be curtailed this year. “In recent years, people have been willing to cut their rates in order to pay their mortgage,” he said. “In fact, part of our growth last year was due to some discounting, but this year I think rates have the opportunity to go up. We’re not back to 2008 rates yet, but the upward trend is there and I think there’s still some room for additional growth in room rates.”
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