As Ian-ravaged parts of Florida face long recovery, where will tourists go?
Hurricane Ian temporarily wiped off the map many of Southwest Florida’s main tourist destinations, so travelers planning to visit Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Captiva islands this fall and winter will have to look elsewhere or stay home.
Visit Florida, the state’s publicly funded destination marketing agency, is trying to make sure those seasonal tourists rebook somewhere in Florida. The challenge is to keep the state’s hospitality businesses, Florida’s biggest industry that employs 1.3 million people, from sustaining another devastating blow during the usual busy winter season.
To do that, the agency said it already launched a marketing rebound strategy to promote travel to unaffected or parts of the state largely spared Ian’s wrath. The nonprofit is dispatching videographers to capture “beautiful, blue-sky footage” in: Miami; Palm Beach; Orlando; Tampa; Jacksonville; Pensacola; Destin;
Tallahassee; Amelia Island; St. Augustine; and the Florida Keys. They’ll use the images for banner ads, videos and social media messaging to try to inform tourists that many Florida destinations remain open and are welcoming visitors.
South Florida should lure a share of the snowbirds and family vacationers who usually go to Lee and Collier counties, among other areas decimated by the deadly hurricane.
“The visitors I think will shift and visit Orlando and South Florida, and there’s gonna be a good chunk that just won’t come,” said Peter Ricci, director of the hospitality management program at Florida Atlantic University, noting he thinks Palm Beach County stands to gain the most tourists who would have gone to Southwest Florida.
“Palm Beach attracts the same type of traveler who goes to Naples, Fort Myers and the barrier islands,” Ricci said. “It has a more sparse
population and is a luxury destination; there’s a perception it’s more relaxed and laid back like the Gulf beaches.”
Leaders in Miami and Miami Beach, cities that have long tried to veer from the reputation of being partying destinations, say families can find a beach vacation in Miami-Dade County.
“It’s important to show that other parts of Florida are still open for business, both for the visitors, but also for our state’s economy and the hospitality workers,” said Rolando Aedo, chief operating officer of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Miami-Dade’s destination marketing agency.
“We in Miami-Dade County are very family friendly. The No. 1 family attraction is the beach, and we have all types of beaches.
There’s South Beach, but you could also have a similar experience to Sanibel in Key Biscayne. Visitors that choose to come can find similar experiences here in our destination.”
Notwithstanding Ian, Visit Florida isn’t abandoning areas hit hard by the hurricane. It’s working with local tourism marketing partners in Southwest Florida to assess visitor readiness in areas affected by the natural disaster. And they plan to promote the region once it’s broadly ready again for tourists.
For most of the tourism spots in Southwest Florida, the next lucrative winter season will be the quietest in decades. However, in a year or two operators of many of them are expected to bounce back and then draw the typical crowds of visitors.
“There will always be a high demand in some of the best beach towns that this country has to offer, so eventually the money will pour back into Southwest Florida. And it’s likely to be back and better than ever with new buildings and high-rises,” said Alex Binelo, a Miamibased accountant at BDO consulting firm, who has experience advising businesses in the aftermath of hurricanes.
Until then, Binelo said the road to recovery for Southwest Florida’s tourism enterprises will be long and include complex insurance claims that could put small companies out of business, depending on how much money they get from insurers and how long they have to wait for payments.
He also predicted likely additional setbacks, such as the high cost of construction materials and worsening labor shortages. What’s more, hospitality workers in Southwest Florida are expected to face mass layoffs due to the hurricane.
Some of these people will opt for jobs in other industries, experts say, or relocate to look for work elsewhere at restaurants, bars and hotels, leaving a sparse hospitality workforce once key tourism businesses are ready to reopen.
“It’s a once-in-a-generation type of storm,” Binelo said of Ian. “It’s going to take a lot to rebuild.”