Unlike nearly every other spring, Crabs and Flounder's Chowder House on Pensacola Beach have relied primarily on locals for support over the last few months as the coronavirus pandemic forced closures and canceled vacation plans.
But as the economy has started to reopen, proprietor Amy Martin said she has started seeing more tourists patronize her businesses, especially as hotel bookings increase.
While her businesses likely won’t recover the revenue lost this spring, Martin said sales over recent weekends have felt as busy as last summer.
"Especially even in the gift shops, we were totally being supported by all the locals, and now you can see a lot more of the tourists," Martin said. "The big hot thing right now is where can you go in a five-hour drive, or a four-hour drive or a two-hour drive? I really think that has so much to do with why we were so popular and having all the locals come out, which normally they don’t."
Local tourism leaders are optimistic that the return of tourists Crabs and Flounders are seeing will be the case for the whole industry this summer as it works to recover from earlier closures to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
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Visit Pensacola CEO Darien Schaefer said projections show that short-term rentals, not including hotels, in the area are expected to be just 3% to 5% lower this June than in June 2019.
"And we're seeing that trend through July and August at this time," he said.
While hotels were never forced to close to prevent the spread of COVID-19, business slowed in March and April as travel halted to stop the spread of the virus.
Escambia County's tourist development tax revenue reflects that. The tax, often called a bed tax, is collected on short-term rentals like hotels. The revenue it generates is spent on tourism-related activities.
In March and April, Escambia County lost $1.24 million in tourist development tax dollars compared to those same two months in 2019, officials said at a Tourist Development Council meeting last week. As of the meeting Tuesday, the county had collected almost $90,000 in the month of June.
So far in this fiscal year, which ends in September, the county has only collected $4.9 million in bed taxes, compared to $12.3 million in 2019.
Locals head to the beach
While the second weekend in June was one of the busiest ever on Pensacola Beach, Escambia County Commissioner Robert Bender said he noticed it was mostly locals visiting. A total of 63,556 cars passed through the toll booth on the way to the beach June 12 to 14 — more than 6,600 more than last year during the same weekend.
"Although vacation rentals and hotels are more occupied, I think a lot of it is our locals that are looking for ways to do an activity and also socially distance," Bender said. "Of course, our infrastructure in terms of restaurants and everything like are still at 50% so we aren't fully reopened, and of course, the hoteliers are taking additional measures to help protect guests. But yes, it does seem that occupation rates are starting to recover."
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Schaefer said Visit Pensacola data has shown that so far, the top ZIP code that bookings are coming from is Pensacola itself. While the organization paused marketing for a while during the pandemic, it started a "cabin fever" campaign to area residents to encourage them to boost the tourism industry.
"We've definitely seen a result in encouraging our own residents to get out and explore so that's good for everybody, including all those businesses, restaurants and activities," Schaefer said.
At Innisfree Hotels, which operates a number of hotels on Pensacola Beach, President and CEO Ted Ent said he believes most of the visitors to the beach have been locals so far.
"We're expecting a pretty high occupancy this weekend. It looks like the weather is going to hold out," Ent said Wednesday. "What we are seeing, though, is the vast majority of people that are coming out to the beach are locals and we're actually seeing some locals who are renting rooms from us as well."
Ent declined to share occupancy rates at Innisfree as competing hotels are also open and operating.
Key Sailing on Pensacola Beach has been so busy lately that staff have had to direct some rental requests to competitors. Owner Kirk Newkirk said he’s noticed his customers are a mix of locals and day trippers.
"It's been jam packed," Newkirk said, adding that his company has bookings scheduled online into Blue Angels weekend. "We're a little bit surprised as to how busy we are still with corona going on."
Despite the crowds, concerns linger. Ent said Innisfree has lowered room prices below what they would be normally due to lower demand, and the typical length of stay for this time of year has been shorter. He said that right now, more people are choosing to stay for long weekends instead of opting for full week vacations.
"That traditional vacation pattern we have not seen yet. What we're seeing is long weekends," Ent said. "People who are actually packing up and going 'Let's go on vacation.'"
Part of what drives that issue is the schools, said Alison Green, chair and associate professor of the University of West Florida's Global Hospitality and Tourism Management Department. Now that schools are out, families may shift to longer vacations.
"Now people are thinking about what they're doing for their summer plans," Green said. "Hopefully that will strengthen because the kids in school (are out). It's now officially summer and now we're shifting a little bit to where we are traveling."
Shifting marketing efforts
Now that the hospitality industry has a handle on locals, Visit Pensacola is shifting its efforts to promote the area's "wide-open spaces" to markets within driving distance, including most recently Louisiana, which is a major feeder market for the local hospitality industry.
Schaefer said he's "cautiously optimistic" about the industry’s recovery this summer.
He said because Visit Pensacola's marketing is online, it can adjust if cases were to increase somewhere. And the media buys Visit Pensacola chooses give staff the flexibility to pull advertising or push it up if needed.
"Our process all along was to watch what is happening locally in our market and public sentiment, city and county leadership sentiment and what we’re allowed to do from the state level," Schaefer said.
Green said being a drive market and having open spaces will help the local tourism industry recover. She said drivers will likely be coming from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
"You will be seeing people come in to enjoy the open air, to enjoy the beach, to enjoy what we have and really to relax and get away within a driving distance," Green said. "I believe it will continue as summers do. We're going to be busy."
Green said she agreed with projections that showed hotel occupancy numbers will rebound and be similar to a normal summer.
"It's just a little slice of normalcy. It's just that little good vibes, I don't know how else to say it. It really feels good to be in that and that's what hotels are feeling," Green said. "Feeling that is good. How do we do it social distancing and with the other concerns, nobody knows. But for right now, yes, being busy is hospitality. We love it."
One of those visitors who drove to vacation on Pensacola Beach this week was Lori Forte, a Kansas City, Missouri, resident. She said her family usually vacations around the Gulf Coast.
"We didn't want to do the airplane. We definitely called to check about what the restrictions are here and what's going on in Florida to ensure that we felt safe about room cleaning and housekeeping," Forte said.
Gloria Lemmey, chief hospitality enthusiast at Citrus Door, a boutique vacation rental company, said her handful of rentals have gotten inquiries every day. A couple of her properties are not available until August.
"I just had this feeling that it was going to be a robust season and it's proving to be so," Lemmey said. "Now it's just any available dates, they're just jumping on."
Madison Arnold can be reached at marnold@pnj.com and 850-435-8522.
Experience Pensacola app
During the recovery, Visit Pensacola has developed a new app to connect both residents and visitors to activities like trails or craft breweries around the area. Eventually, Visit Pensacola will use geolocation to come up with challenges, like completing a trail, and then offer a prize or recognition at the Visitor Center to those who finish it. Those interested in downloading the app can search "Experience Pensacola" on Apple App Store or Google Play. For more info, go to visitpensacola.com/app.
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