Travelers cautious as holidays approach
Although investors stampeded to tourism stocks after word of progress on a COVID-19 vaccine, the development is no swift salvation for South Florida.
Would-be travelers are taking a cautious approach as they plot trips for the holidays and into 2021, according to travel analysts, airline executives and tourism promoters.
In Florida and elsewhere, the upshot will be a depressed holiday travel season with air travel levels not seen since the Great Recession.
Since the coronavirus first struck down the mid-March—sending thousands of Floridians to the unemployment line — fear of travel has gripped the country. Millions of consumers have avoided flying to Florida’s airports; cruise lines stopped sailing from local ports; and Florida’ s hotels suddenly found themselves with multiple
floors of empty rooms.
The bottom line for many travelers: They’ll either stay home or go with conservative plans until a vaccine is widely distributed around the country, which might not happen until the middle or end of next year.
For those anxious enough to leave their homes to escape cabin fever, cold weather, government advisories and unpredictable work and school schedules, many are changing their preferred destinations, types of accommodation sand even the length of their durations, travel analysts say.
Peter Quinter, an international trade lawyer based in Boca Raton, once traveled widely in the U.S. and abroad for business and pleasure before the pandemic struck.
“I was traveling globally and domestically almost every week for several years ,” he said. “That came to a screeching halt in March. Since then, I’ve traveled for business to Puerto Rico and on personal trips to Philadelphia and Denver. That’s it for being on a plane. Ihave driven to Savannah and Tampa and all over Florida.”
Quinter said he has no plans to attempt to travel internationally and “we have no interest in going a cruise ship.” Earlier this year, heand his wife canceled leisure trips to Portugal and Italy.
And an annual Thanksgiving Day gathering fortwo or three dozen relatives will have to wait until next year. Instead, Quint er and his wife, their daughter and a guest are driving to the Orlando area for the holiday.
Nonetheless, news of a major advance in a vaccine’s development by Pfizer thrilled Wall Street investors. Shares of Carnival Cruise Line closed up 39.3% on the day of the announcement. Disney was up 11.8%. Hyatt Hotels Corp. rose 19.8% and Spirit Airlines, based in Miramar, 20.5%.
The excitement has not extended to South Florida’s leisure and hospitality promoters, who remain guarded about their holiday prospects.
“Discover The Palm Beaches has long believed the future of our tourism economy depends on a number of global factors, including the availability of a vaccine,” said Jorge Pesquera, president and CEO of Discover The Palm Beaches. “We’ve seen gradual signs of recovery and rising demand over the past several months, andwe view Pfizer’s recent vaccine findings as a highly encouraging step toward restoring traveler confidence around the world.”
He said that while it’s too early to project what travel to Palm Beach County will look like in the coming months, “we expect to see an increase in future bookings especially as the vaccine starts to be accepted and deployed. Still, it’s going to take a couple of years before we return to pre-pandemic visitation levels.”
Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Visitors and Convention Bureau, said the runway to a rebound in visitor numbers will extend into nextyear.
“The announcement of the vaccine is a huge step forward for our industry,” she said. “Whilewe may not see substantially morethe destination until the vaccine is widely available, this news could give travelers the extra incentive to start booking their trips in 2021.
For both leisure and business travel, analysts say, the key to reopening the flood gates is the vaccine, available yet.
“I think leisure travelers will travel as soon as they can get their families vaccinated ,” said Peter Ricci, director of the hospitality and tourism management program at Florida Atlantic University.
“Business travelers will hesitate until the entire group gets vaccinated,” he said. “Yes, it’s a promising light. But I think there is a six- to 18-month lag time before travel picks up.”
Travelers aren’t the only ones who hope the vaccine will break the pandemic’s grip on travel. Employees laid off by airlines, hotels, airport concessions and restaurants are looking forward to the day that a vaccine will provide a pathway to return to work.
“We and our members are watching very closely,” said Wen di Walsh, secretary-treasurer of the UNITE HERE Local 355, which represents 34,000workers in South and Central Florida. “The hospitality industry continues to suffer significant losses here. An overwhelming number of our members are still unemployed. They are looking forward to going back to work. The industry is in ching itsway. But at this rate it’s an extraordinarily long road .”
For many, a return to work depends on a revival of the group convention and event business thatwas also crushed when the pandemic hit in March.
“It’s hard to see events of 1,000 or 2,000 attendees coming back without a vaccine,” Walsh said.
Holiday forecast: Abig decline
AAA-The Auto Club Group, the national travel service, said Friday that fewer Americans will travel for Thanksgiving this year due to COVID-19 and the unemployment the pandemic spawned. The service said trip volumes will be at their lowest in four years, with air travel at its lowest state and national levels since the recession year of2009.
In Florida, AAA forecasts 2.8 million travelers, down from the 2.9 million who visited the state in 2019. But the majority will travel by car, only 0.8% less than last year, AAA says.
The number of people traveling by air is expected to fall by44%.
“These figures could be even lower as Americans monitor the public health landscape, including rising COVID-19 positive case numbers, renewed quarantine restrictions and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s travel health notices,” AAA said.
Yet, there is some good news for Florida. Of the people who do choose to travel over Thanksgiving and Christmas, many are opting for the Sunshine State as their landing spot.
Some airlines, whose passenger levels plunged to catastrophic levels during the pandemic, are seeing an increase in reservations to Florida and elsewhere since the summer.
“I’m knocking on wood right now,” said John Kirby, vice president of network planning at Spirit Airlines in Miramar. “I’m sure there’s going to be another curve ball or two. The vaccine being 90% plus [effective] was a surprise to everyone. You can’ t help but think it’ s going to accelerate the process.”
He said the discount airline, which focuses on leisure travelers, has been attracting more passengers with lower fares and marketing its health measures, which include mandatory masks on board, air filtration in the cabins, and disinfection of high contact areas, among other protocols in the planes and terminal areas. But external events such as Tropical Storm Eta, and spikes in new coronavirus infections, have made for a “choppy” ride.
“South Florida has been pretty good since the fall ,” he said. “Right now it’s kind of a weird ... we’ve got the election. you’ve got the storm, some news on the COVID cases increasing. I think there’s a lot of noise right now. But we’re pretty happy with our bookings and the bookings we take every day for the holidays over Thanksgiving and Christmas .”
According to a survey from Tripit, the online travel planning service, travelers are now willing to extend the duration of their trips during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. And three Florida cities cracked the service’ s Top 10destinations for Thanksgiving travel this year: Orlando at 3, Fort Lauderdale at 9 and Tampa at 10.
The rankings are basedon flights originating in the U.S. and lodging reservations.
Trip it found lodging reservations for four-to seven day stays are more popular than stays of up to three days during Thanksgiving, an annual increase of 28%, with lengthier stays around Christmas up 21%.
Thanksgiving reservations for aweek or longer are also up 86%. The service reported substantial increases in the length of stays through the Thanksgiving weekend, the second week of December and through Christmas Day.
Among those who have been traveling, Florida “has been a consistently popular travel destination this year,” said Kelly So der lu nd, a travel trends analyst at Tripit.
“During Labor Day weekend, when millions returned to travel, 12% of all Labor Day flight reservations in Tripit included a trip to Florida, with Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers all recording year-over-year increases,” she said.
Preference for extended stays
Some South Florida hoteliers confirmed they are receiving more inquiries about longer visits, including requests for more than one room: one for sleeping and one to keep in touch with employers backhome.
“The inquiries for long stays have been higher than usual,” said Bernardo Neto, general manager of The Ben in West Palm Beach, which opened in February. “Clients that used to come for a week are now talking about a month or two at a time. Clients focused on doing excursions or beach or leisure activities are also making inquiries about needing to get a second room to work.”
Cathy Balestriere, general manager of Crane’s Beach House, a boutique hotel in Delray Beach, said guests want to know if they can have a room that opens to the outdoors.
“That’s been the No. 1 thing,” she said. “Everybody wants to know if they can have a room with an outdoor space. We’re going to set up holiday tables for all of our guests. They can literally have tables set up outside to have their holiday dinners.”
Heiko Dubrikow, general manager of the Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, said he feels there will be a last-minute push among people booking rooms for the holidays because of spikes in new COVID-19 cases in multiple states .“We came off the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show and it was a very good week for us,” he said.
But now that it’s over, “we’ve slowed down already.”
“Some of the messaging we see in the news is not positive where the reports are that it might not be a good idea to travel during the Thanksgiving holiday ,” Dub rik ow said.
In the end, he believes northerners will come, inspired by the sheer force of win try weather.
“I think with the winter season coming up people will be antsy to get out of the cold,” he said. “The warmer-climate states will see an influx of travel coming from those cold areas. I still think we will see an increase of people traveling by car from surrounding states.”