Last June when Jon Wayne went to the Panama City area for a beach vacation, he saw something unusual for that time of year: no crowds.
Beaches in northwest Florida resort towns were all but deserted. Hotel rooms and condominiums units were widely available -- at a discount -- and tables in restaurants were there for the taking, no wait required.
"It was a ghost town," the Hoschton resident recalled.
But, oh, what a difference a year makes. This week, Wayne is back in the Panama City area, vacationing with his family. And the scene has really changed.
"It's packed," he said Thursday. "The first night we were quoted an hour and 45 minutes wait in a restaurant and this was a middle-of-the-road family place on a Sunday."
Miniature golf courses, go-cart tracks and other attractions are also jammed, he said.
The memory of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill 14 months ago that fouled Gulf of Mexico waters and coughed up tarballs onto adjacent beaches is still vivid along the Panhandle. Combined with the lingering affects of the recession, it made for much misery for the hospitality industry last summer in popular destinations including Panama City Beach and Destin, even if those communities didn't suffer the extent of environmental damage that other Gulf towns did.
Businesses expect this summer's rebound to continue. Marty McDaniel, chief executive officer of Oaseas Resorts in Panama City Beach, which offers more than 1,000 condominium units for rent, said business is up 32 percent so far this month compared to June 2010, after being up 37 percent from January through May compared to the same period last year. The company currently is running 40 percent ahead for July.
"We're feeling a whole lot better this year than last year," McDaniel said.
Because demand has returned, prices have also returned to pre-oil spill days. McDaniel said rates are up 15 to 20 percent this year compared to 2010 and about equal to what they were in 2009.
Dieter Blasbichler, owner of the Sea Oats Motel, a 50-room beachfront property in Destin that includes condominiums and beach houses, said room rates were discounted by 30 percent or more last year, especially in July after people saw media accounts on the impact of oil on the beaches.
This year, he said, there will be no discounts. And, he added, "We're quite full."
Room rates and availability as well as the size of crowds at various tourist attractions are of considerable interest to many people in metro Atlanta. Northwest Florida's beach communities are among the favorite vacation spots of Atlanta residents and business owners in resort towns there say Atlanta represents one of its biggest markets.
Lauren Reagin, of Dunwoody, vacationed in Sandestin last week. She's heading back to stay at nearby Seaside next week. The cost of the condo she stayed at in Sandestin had returned to normal, she noted.
"We feel like we paid pretty top dollar for our accommodations," she said.
Like Wayne, she felt tourism business in the beach towns was back.
"This year it's definitely more crowded," she said. "It was very busy everywhere we went. Last year it was definitely quieter."
Said Dan Rowe, president and CEO of the Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, "It was a tough year. Every day you didn't know what was going to happen."
Rowe said local tourist businesses expected a big year in 2010. One reason for optimism was the opening of a new, larger airport and the arrival of Southwest Airlines. That connected the area to markets that had previously been harder to reach, including Houston and Baltimore.
The airport did boost traffic, but the gains would have been even better last year if not for the oil spill, Rowe said.
While there have been no environmental issues this season, a new concern has been travelers' fear of high gas prices. But recent decreases in pump prices have reduced that worry.
So far, "That hasn't been a factor," said Buddy Wilkes, general manager of Shipwreck Island Waterpark in Panama City Beach.
"We've had a good start," Wilkes said. "Business was soft last year. But people have more confidence in the economy."
Last year, resort businesses experienced reservation cancellations and a dramatic falloff in traffic in July, the area's biggest month for tourism, and in June, its second biggest.
Now, said Rowe, "There's pent-up demand. We still have a great product and there wasn't any catastrophic impact to the beach. It's over and people want to come back."
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