Facebook Q&A: Tourism impact on South Florida
good afternoon everyone i'm michelle quesada here with wptv and i am joined this afternoon by several hotel managers and staff across palm beach county thank you all so much for being here and i'll be introducing you one on one by one in a second um we also have glenn jurgensen with the palm beach county uh tourist development council who's joined us this afternoon and i'm sure you've all been talking about this seeing this just the increase in tourism that we have seen in palm beach county in the recent months you've seen our series uh priced out of paradise that has really focused on the housing market and the rental market and what we've seen there and now we're seeing this huge boom of tourism record numbers as glenn will tell you about um just you know filling up our hotels filling up our restaurants the traffic is pretty crazy anywhere in palm beach county that you go right now and we're going to talk about it we're going to talk about what's driving this slowing down or not all the aspects of what we're seeing feel free to put in any comments or questions uh throughout the discussion and we'll try to keep the conversation going and hear from you and answer your question so first off um i just want to be able to introduce everybody who's here we have uh ryan karan with the director of sales at a loft hotel in delray beach ryan thank you so much for joining us thank you thank you for having us and corey goldfarb he's the sales manager at the palm beach marriott singer island beach resort and spa corey thank you again for spending time with us this afternoon thank you michelle pleasure to be here chris steele he's the general manager of the canopy hotel in downtown west palm beach hi chris hi how are you doing thanks for having me thank you and of course glenn jergensen uh executive director of the palm beach county tourist development council hi glenn hi michelle good to be with you today thank you and i want to start with you glenn because you're the numbers guy you you really keep track of the data here in palm beach county and um you know really talk about what we've been seeing how how quickly did this all start well we just started to see a huge boom in tourism i know we had kovitz still lingering variants last year we had omicron in january and then all of a sudden we just had a big boom in people coming to palm beach county well it's absolutely been ramping up since 2021 you know we came out of the pandemic it was a variant after variant that just impacted us and we kept slowing back and pulling back but then in 2021 it really started to and our fiscal year starts in october so uh in 2021 it just started to peak up uh the summer of uh actually starting in april of last year 2021 we set records every single month for bed tax collections which is our that's our monitor of how healthy the economy is for tourism in the county and we set records every single month starting in april it has not ended the month of january this past january was another record month we did 7.8 million dollars just worth of collections bed tax collections and that's that's six cents on every dollar that's spent on the accommodations of a hotel or a or a non-hotel like a vrbo and airbnb so we did 7.8 million last january 4.1 so we're up 83 percent year over year it's incredible it really is in the first five months of the new fiscal year that started in october right now we are a hundred percent ahead of the same period last year in 2021 so it's good for the economy and we're seeing that you know that demand just has as we saw with the housing market i know some people have already commented on the pricing of ren and all that we've seen the demand also drive up the cost and the rates at hotels if you want to stay um you know uh corey you you're the sales manager at the palm beach marriott singer island beach resort you guys i i just looked up your whole if you wanted to stay for april first that week at april or first day april 4th it's like a thousand dollars over a thousand dollars a night talk a little bit about that just demands and how the prices are going up yeah we've seen we've been very fortunate seeing incredible demand over the last year um you know obviously being a such an open state has drawn a lot of business down this way but we sit on a beautiful piece of real estate here at singer island such a unique property being right on the beach and all suite property so those numbers that demand this keeps growing and growing we've seen about a 10 increase in occupancy year over year um over the last six months or so so as those numbers continue to rise um and occupancy people want to be here um those rates have followed as well the good news is summer's coming um and while occupancy could still continue to grow uh we'll should see an evening out of those rates a little bit um you know looking more into the you know mid 600 range so um you know there's going to be a slight corrections if you will um or at least some some more value options coming out there but overall we've been very fortunate to have such great demand um over the last year yeah and as glenn informed me yet you know this week the rates for hotels are up 30-50 across the county this isn't just specific to singer island or any specific area of the county i wanted to bring in chris steele from the canopy hotel downtown west chris if you could talk a little bit about just um whether or not you see a lot of counters are local staycationers you know what's the clientele that you're seeing that wants to book at the hotel right now yeah absolutely so you know we've been pretty fortunate to get a lot of actually stage staycationers here so we get a lot of people that come up from miami miami is another massive area that continues to do really well and extremely busy and a lot of locals in miami leave miami to to escape that chaos and we uh we see them here in downtown west palm beach a lot um so it's a little slice of of tranquility away from the the madness that is south in our our neighboring counties aside from that uh we do get a fair share of vacationers from out of town so the tri-state area new york pennsylvania new jersey that northeast pocket we get an insane amount of guests from there as well so um you know we're our location is is right in downtown west palm beach so we're we're close to everything so i think that has a lot to do with it as well and people want to just be able to park their car and be within walking distance to to shops restaurants and things like that so um it's a mix like i said staycationers i would say coming from our neighboring counties and then we also do have quite a bit from the northeast as well um of course that's a lot a lot of that's a weather trip and um as they get they can continue to see snow storms the weather here continues to be phenomenal so yeah and we've and we've noticed that uh sorry my dogs are i have two german shepherds at home so whenever they hear the mailman they go off like crazy he agreed with me yeah they were commenting on the prices right that's right and you mentioned you know just the amount of out-of-towners that are locally like coming into palm beach county and we see it with the license plate on the road i mean yesterday i saw uh tennessee and um you know new york in like one second i saw two different license plates i know we're seeing the traffic increase in palm beach county as well um but you know going back to to the the sales part of this um for the last couple of weeks i know that for for hotel occupancy it's been at 100 especially presidents day weekend it was a huge week for hotels ryan i talked with one of your sales managers earlier this week over at aloft you guys were at 100 capacity for a few weeks right occupancy yes yes we had uh quite a few weeks there uh from mid february up until about this week where we were lucky enough to be at 100 occupancy um thankfully the community of delray beach has a lot of events that go on during this time uh which brings a lot of people in uh both driving in uh up from miami down from port st lucie over from tampa as well as our northeastern travelers uh and from the midwest as well do we glenn for see this um continuing on for the several for for the next several months i know you mentioned just spring training and having all these sports activities going on it's going to continue to drive people to come to palm beach county well i i think february march and april i with uh easter being a little bit late in the month later in the month of april i think season is going to be phenomenal and then i think as we get into the summertime uh sports tourism starts to take over and a lot of our hotels certainly the i-95 and turnpike coward those hotels will host a lot of families who are here for a lot of the sporting events that we do the amateur amateur baseball sports a lot of the uh soccer and and lacrosse and things like that so i think the summer time uh if the if the for hotel friends can keep the rates that uh are affordable by families i think it's going to be a great summer too and you know i wanted to try to comment uh vito lorenzo comments people that live in florida can't afford to vacation in their own state hotel prices are way too high i know there are incentives though i know if you're a member at you know marriott bon voyage you get a discount can you uh if you all want to jump in you know what are the different incentives or discounts you can get whether you're triple a member or how can you make it more affordable for our local uh staycationers whoever wants to jump in [Laughter] yes sir sure so there's a lot of um i'm one of those as well i i love this to staycation in my own state um a lot of hotels offer florida resident rates florida georgia resident lakes you'll you'll see that um there is also aaa those can be anywhere from 15 to 20 discounts um and then there's also each hotel has their own loyalty program so if you're a member of that then there's usually um a discount off of the uh the best available rate that you'll see so there's little little things like that i would also recommend looking uh off-peak days you know for example we have the palm beach county bow show coming up soon it's in your best bet try to not look for a hotel around that time frame because it's just insane demand it's our equivalent of having a super bowl in our backyard look for sundays mondays things like that if if you can those are some of our days that are not peak and you'll usually see the prices go down a little bit around that time um also uh you know like was mentioned earlier you've got summer time coming up and uh um we associate see travel decrease a little bit there we should open it up so those are just a few tricks of the trade to hopefully help people out and if i can add a trick for you look at the flexibility options uh i know on marrow.com site if you look at our hotel look at a two-night stay you can choose what month you want to stay in and it'll give you every arrival day what your uh what your price is going to be so if you're a local and you have some flexibility on when you can travel look at those options you might be able to find some great value over a weekend that you may not have realized would be a great value for you and and corey is the the sales manager over at palm beach marriott singer island cory you know and for the rest of you are are you also seeing this this increase in movement at your hotel restaurants because i know all of you have fabulous restaurants inside inside your establishments are you seeing that locals are also booking up reservations there on the weekends yeah absolutely we love having our local clientele come and visit us um you know the we're in an area particularly for us that has a lot of condo residents in the immediate area um so those have been just as busy as the hotels have been we've been very fortunate that they want to be here as well so and the restaurant's been jamming and we've seen a lot of great results out of them as well i know there's been a lot of negativity across from our local residents just about you know oh there's so many out-of-towners and some people from the northeast that are buying up homes uh you know cash offers night on scene and also now taking up a lot of our hotel reservations our our restaurant uh reservations but glenn you know you mentioned earlier what's developed about fed taxes and how a lot of these out of town folks really drive our tourism economy here can you talk a little bit about where those dollars go back into our county and how we do get to enjoy uh the fruits of that labor if you will you know in the long term i think as i mentioned the last time we met michelle is that really the the benefit of tourism taxes and what we do with those tourism taxes improves the quality of life for all of us because everything that we collect goes back into the economy it goes into marketing to bring certainly more folks here but it also builds the tourism assets that we have we wouldn't have two ballparks hosting four major league baseball teams if it wasn't for tourism taxes we wouldn't have a convention center that hosts groups and meetings and and art shows and the like if we didn't have tourism taxes so those are the kind of things and and the other big one because people come to the palm beaches because they love our beaches we put over six million dollars of tourism taxes into beach renourishment every single year that our environmental management team at the county leverages with state funds and federal funds to be able to make our beaches as as pristine as possible so that's where tourism taxes go back to we don't just put them in reserves and hold them for a rainy day we put them back to work to keep these visitors coming in going to our restaurants certainly going to our cultural venues and our sporting venues and certainly uh you know having the chance for our hoteliers and their employees to service these folks and and give them a vacation that they'll enjoy and they'll remember for the rest of their life and chris you did offer uh some tips on on how you can find the best rates you know um could you also talk a little bit about you know how how far in advance can you book right now to be able to get a reasonable rate maybe down the line are you getting rates only a few weeks out or if someone wanted to book you know something in september october is that even possible sure yeah they can book that far out um and you know if if they have plans finalized or if they know that's the month that they might want to be traveling in then i would recommend that um because it's as demand continues to increase then it's just a common reaction that the prices will too so if they have the ability to book that far out then they certainly can um you know we our hotel specifically we had almost a hundred thousand dollars in cancellation happen uh in january because of the uh the omnicron variant um hundred thousand dollars in the month and then we got it all back it was all booked by local vacationers and things like that so people are are watching closely and and waiting for cancellations we've considered opening up a wait list that the brand does offer um but uh you know so i i recommend that i recommend looking in advance um a lot of hotels are very very flexible that far out with cancellation policy as well so that you're not held accountable for anything if you cancel with it within notice so if your plans change you can always you can always cancel that and get a refund back if if it need be that's great someone just commented peter let's figure out a way to get rid of traffic right that comes that comes along with the territory of more more people around one thing that someone brought up to me uh earlier this week was uh you know are there any any uh bundle um bundle packages that are offered like that you do pay a higher rate to say your hotel are there any books if you want to go to a golf course or you want to go to an activity somewhere else in palm beach county do any of the hotels offer things like that ours specifically does not and in our location in downtown west palm beach so we're not adjacent to any golf course or anything like that we do have two fabulous restaurants on site one of which is a rooftop bar and lounge so there's discounts that are had for certain tiers of hotel loyalty members and things like that but um perhaps some of the other panelists might have some of those packages available but unfortunately we're landlocked right here in downtown west palm so yeah any activities on the water i know i know already has a recreation center at your hotel right that you offer some of these things yeah absolutely we have a lot of different activities right here on property whether it's paddle boarding kayaking out on the ocean snorkeling gear two pools as well full service spa here on property so we really position ourselves at the property where you can come here and have a full experience without ever having to leave the property as always talking about how great the county is though we're within a short drive of so many great golf courses and other venues sustainability of course being a big part of our messaging as well so partnering with loggerhead marine life center for example um all different things that we'd like to endorse um to our guests and we're doing various packages as well to kind of add some value to those rates that we're charging so whether it's a meal packaging that's included activity packaging um through our website we offer a number of different options to really make the most of your experience when you stay with us yeah for those that are just winning i know some are asking about about rental housing market so you know this discussion really stems off of we know that there is a price paradise situation going on right now that the housing market um has had uh uh we've done a whole series on this on just what the housing market has looked like with the influx of people coming into palm beach county with the high demand for homes and and um apartments we're looking at typically the tourism impact of all this you know our hotels are also getting booked to capacity our restaurant locally those reservations are being booked i know i just spoke to a woman the other day who said she's changing her habits of what nights she dines out so normally she would dine out friday saturday night typical you know date nights and now she's moving that to you know mondays or tuesdays or moving her happy hours from fridays to wednesdays or thursdays so those are all the kind of things that we're talking about right now um just a lot of different things that have impacted the lifestyle of our locals i know obviously the housing market is one that's very stressful for for our viewers for everyone who lives in our area but this also is is a topic of interest you've been hearing about just the lifestyle of being able to just go to your favorite restaurant on the weekend or book a tea time to golf and and everything is pretty much taken up you know um anything else uh glenn i know we talked about just uh the summers have been picking up here normally that's our slower season and everybody always talks about season you know being from the months move up over to april but we're starting to see that stretch out a little bit or become less uh definite less um uh obvious what what season is in palm beach county is that what you're seeing as well with the data i think it's flattening out a lot i think we're starting to see that summertime you know we come out of peak season which ends up being that april may time frame but there are so many activities and so many folks that still look to the to florida and south florida because at the time it might be a little bit more affordable vacation to come down here but the beautiful beaches the golf courses 160 golf courses in palm beach county that people can and certainly some of the best we have in the worlds right here with public courses and private courses and then just all the environmental areas that we have where people can go and be outdoors and really enjoy uh just the outside and our parks and recreation system in the county is second to none so that's what people want to do they want to be outside they want to be enjoying the summertime it's no hotter down here than it is in in boston in the middle of summertime we have air conditioning to handle those inside uh you know go in and escape whereas a lot of places up north don't have air conditioning so it's not that bad down here are we seeing and i know there's a lot of marketing that takes place in other states to get people to palm beach county are we seeing that a lot of our locals are also looking elsewhere to vacation and trying to get i know plane tickets also are rocketing but um i just just made me think of it because betty lorenzo commented about you know for three thousand or five thousand dollars you can go to other countries like brazil and dr and that she you might have a vacation that's a little cheaper than going to miami or fort lauderdale which you know i someone mentioned that me yesterday too they're like you know maybe you could fly to the bus and go there for a weekend and spend less money are you seeing that locals are exploring those options instead is that question for me michelle i'm sorry glenn yeah well i think you know i think locals do want to disappear at some point in time they want to go to even other other areas of florida and see if they can enjoy a vacation there but i i just would think that's probably sometime in this in this same time frame that going out of the country is probably not something that too many people are doing i know the caribbean is just starting to open up a lot of the islands down there have have not been opened have not been available and we'll probably see some impact of that coming into the into the later part of season and maybe into the summer time but still you know where can you either drive to or or do a uh you know shorter trip if you can drive to a location uh what better yeah and uh julie had a good question uh do you anticipate more in-state travel with brightline back and it's expansion to orlando underway i mean and and uh she brings up gas prices too which i'm sure is on the top of mine for many when they're considering well do i want to do a vacation right in my backyard and do my beach or do i want to drive up to you know vero beach or somewhere else i think bright line is going to be a great position for all of us i think the hoteliers that are certainly close to the bright line tracks and certainly downtown and the like and uh have that access and it's so easy to to get from miami and then when orlando's in in full swing i think it's the palm beaches is going to be right in the sweet spot between the orlando international airport we've got pbi right within you know three miles of west palm beach downtown and then you've got both fort lauderdale stops and miami stops we're right in the middle so people could say hey i'm going to fly into orlando then i'm going to get out of the palm beaches for a couple of days maybe i'll go all the way down to miami and spend a few down there so i think it's going to open up a lot of options for our travelers around the country and even around the state of florida to decide you know maybe we'll get down to the palm beaches for a couple of days and stay at the canopy or we'll get a an uber and go up to the singer island marriott uh certainly del rey you know when the new new station is also down in boca for bright line i think that's going to be another plus that bokeh and del rey are really going to see the benefit of the bright line travel especially when or when orlando opens up in the next few years absolutely and you know do you think a hotel hoteliers this is a turning point i know i know 2020 and 2021 were a lot lower than i know 2021 when you started to pick up a little bit more but we're a lot slower than what you're used to um you know your numbers to 2019 but you know ryan over at aloft do you think this is the turning point i know i know yesterday in talking to tanya she talked about just the spring breakers now in the next few weeks driving uh driving you can see that way so i feel like there's always something going on this might be a turning point for vacationing definitely i would definitely say that this is a turning point um you know i can say for the next couple months probably through early summer we are seeing a very high occupancy uh so we're very thankful to see that um you know both with with flying in and driving in we're seeing it all the way through through july right now yeah anything else you all would like to add you know um i know i know obviously we're seeing those prices anywhere between 30 to 50 percent increase on those hotel rates you know you expect it to drop some time in the summer time by how much i mean i know you don't have crystal ball but you know what what can our locals just to give them a little glimmer of hope to say hey summer vacation might still be intact if you wait a little longer yeah and i i can talk to that michelle you know you mentioned at the start that you know you look at a rates for our hotel for a weekend out here was about a thousand dollars a night right now and that's very true um i i looked in june uh we're looking at weekends and uh closer to the 650 range um july even a little bit lower in the the mid fives so we're definitely seeing some um lower rates as we get into the summer months um but demand continues to be high as much earlier we do still plan to be sold out or close to it through all those times but hopefully those will be opportunities where um some of those folks who are local want to stay local will have the opportunity to come see us or the other great properties throughout the palm beach area as those numbers start to decrease a little bit yeah anything else you all would like to add just about the methods of of locals booking at your hotels like you know i know there's so many third parties you can book through uh would you be able to find better discounts booking that way or looking straight from your from your websites like you know um chris if you want to talk a little bit about that what's the best method for people to look at the rates and compare you know hey maybe this weekend or next weekend is too high for me but two months down the line i see the rates are dropping just a tad yeah so i would recommend actually uh booking through the brand's website the reason for that is they're typically a lot more flexible with any cancellations so not just speaking you know coveted incidents but life happens right so um typically when you book a raid through some of the third party discount sites you you pay in advance and you're locked in um and actually see someone was was commenting about just that and they lost a lot of money so um nobody likes to do that i would recommend booking through the brand whether that's marriott hilton hyatt whatever the case may be you'll get a dollar for dollar same price a lot of these brands match the rates of the discount sites but then again you you're not uh held accountable if something happens like that so you can cancel most of the time and get a full refund if you're required to pay up front the the old days of booking through some of these discount sites the brands have wised up to that and it's not such the delta between the the two sites doesn't exist anymore so i'd recommend going through the brand.com and then i mean if
you're going to spend the money anyway get rewarded for it again whether you're marriott hilton hyatt whatever um enroll in their loyalty program get points for your stay um you're paying a lot of money to stay at these hotels and you'll get points uh based off of the more you spend so that's that's what i would recommend um with whatever brand you choose they're all really good about that and before i let you guys go corey i wanted to touch with you real quick touch base with you on hiring because i know a lot of hotels in our in our and hospitality industry in general is still struggling to get back up to a full staff of what they were like in 2019 um you all just had a retiring event at the palm beach marriott singer island you know uh how are you uh handling the vacancies and still handling the high demands uh with guests at your hotel and i'm glad you brought it up you know with these higher rates comes really high expectations from our gas and it's all in our team's hands to deliver on those we do still have a number of vacancies that we continue to try to fill we've done a great job and our team has done a great job of filling those vacancies but really what it comes down to is where those shortfalls are in higher positions is the rest of the team to help pick up that slack i'm the sales manager at this hotel but over the last few months i've assisted in cleaning rooms busting tables helping out the pools setting up the beaches you know it takes a whole team effort here to make sure that our guests who are paying the thousand dollar per night um stays are not feeling the impact of what those hiring and employee deficits are luckily we've done a great job of filling those positions lately we're getting very close to getting back to our pre-pandemic staffing levels but at the end of the day um that doesn't matter to our guests you know they're paying a thousand dollars a night we need to make sure that we fulfill those expectations and um i'll just say that our team's done a phenomenal job over the last few months of doing so absolutely and that's if anyone else wants to touch on that i i think about that all the time if you're paying that much money to stay in a hotel you want the pool experience you want great service and you and as hoteliers you want to be able to do that so you can continue to bring back people and have them return to palm beach county i'm sure and i think michelle just just so your viewers know we're still not up to the level of employment that we were you know pre-pandemic right now we're at about 88 000 folks that are in the leisure and hospitality sector of employment that includes the hotels the restaurants the attractions normally right now in january february we have about 96 000 people employed in this industry so we're still down a lot of people tourism and hospitality was the industry that was most impacted by the pandemic and there's still a lot of people that are still have not come back to this industry found other jobs other places going into other careers but as you can tell the the hotels are are certainly working with what they have to make your experience as uh as wonderful as possible but i'm sure it's a very big challenge as you can hear corey talk you know sales manager that's out uh making beds and bus and tables and it's certainly uh it's a challenge but we want we want our guests to understand that this is uh this is the palm beaches and we're proud of what we all have and we want to put people back to work our friends and neighbors so absolutely thank you all so much for joining us and i really appreciate everyone who participated and asked questions or had comments um you know i wanna i wanna close with reminding everyone who might be feeling frustration from high gas prices from you know just the increase in traffic just you know overcrowding at restaurants and everything that um you know there are ways that you can work around this still get the staycation that you wanted if you're traveling out of florida especially for you right now like looking to the hotels that have the florida residence rates or have a rates for being a member of that um all those things uh help and also being flexible with your vacation is what i'm hearing from these gentlemen being flexible about the time of conduction uh to get the best rate so we're gonna have a story on these frustrations and the impact of our human tourism plus the benefits the pros of our booming tourism uh tonight at six o'clock so please make sure to tune into that on channel five and for now i just want to thank all of you so much for your time thank you for the discussion and i hope our viewers are our um you know facebook participants got something out of this today i appreciate you all so much thank you michelle thank you good afternoon thank you
2022-03-18 02:09
