Gulf Shores - Beaches Are Back on Top
Very positive article about why the strong demand for tourism is expected in 2007.
Published By Mobile Press Register
Monday, January 08, 2007
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
ORANGE BEACH -- After a storm-driven dip, Baldwin County has regained its No. 1 tourism ranking among the northern Gulf Coast's counties with beach destinations, according to a new study.
Baldwin County collected $227 million in lodgings tax revenue through October for a 24 percent share of the $947 million generated among it and five Florida panhandle counties during that time, according to a Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau report.
Hurricane Ivan struck a devastating blow to Baldwin's beaches in 2004, but until the September storm it had been a benchmark year for tourism. The next year was mired in Ivan cleanup and two close calls with hurricanes Dennis and Katrina.
By 2006, the beach was, for the most part, back and ready for tourists, and, measured in lodgings tax revenue, amounted to 92 percent of 2004's high.
"Our goal for'07 is to increase by 15 percent over'06," said Mike Foster, vice president of marketing for the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. "It's a huge challenge, but it's one, as we look forward, we think we can do. We've got a lot of very, very positive factors going for us."
Among those: the anticipated opening of three major commercial developments that will add millions of square feet of retail and restaurant space, a record-setting 1,346 condo units and hotel rooms hitting the rental market, and an advertising campaign that is expected to top $1 million.
The restaurants, movie theaters, shops and other attractions that are planned as part of the large commercial projects under way -- The Wharf and Bama Bayou in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores' Colonial Pinnacle at Craft Farms -- will help lure more-affluent visitors and give them places to spend their money, Foster said.
The 1,346 condo units and hotel rooms expected to open this year are a part of a larger two-year boost in rooms that will see the total available along Baldwin's beaches grow from 14,436 available at the moment to 16,724 by the end of 2008. That number, according to Convention and Visitors Bureau data, put Orange Beach and Gulf Shores ahead of international cities including Sydney, Australia; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Vancouver, British Columbia, in tourist capacity.
Foster said the Convention and Visitors Bureau only counts units in buildings that are under construction and those which allow vacation rentals. The figures do not account for beach houses that are rented short-term or hotel rooms, which number in the hundreds, located in Foley.
While the way that visitors book their trips is changing -- more make reservations online and more wait until the last minute -- their numbers, in the end, are growing, said Sarah Kuzma, corporate relations director at Meyer Real Estate.
It may be hard to predict occupancy rates for the 2,000 rental properties the Gulf Shores company manages, but Kuzma said, "We're really optimistic about'07."
Marie Curren, director of marketing and reservations for Brett/Robinson, said that revenue-wise the company had the best year in its history last year and expects to beat those benchmark numbers. Already bookings in the conglomerate's 1,889 condo units are up 15 percent this year.
A new Orange Beach condo tower, Phoenix on the Bay II, will open this year, boosting Brett/Robinson's rental stock by about 5 percent, Curren said. The company, she said, is confident that it will be able to maintain high occupancy rates with the added inventory because of the local business culture in which competing firms, such as Brett/Robinson and Meyer, are more focused on pushing Alabama's beaches, often referring customers back and forth, than they are at putting one another out of business.
"The more everyone works together, it benefits the community so much more than being at each other's throats," Curren said. "Rather than have them go to Destin, let's keep them in the neighborhood."
And to get them, the well-heeled tourists, to Alabama's beaches in the first place, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, a quasi-governmental agency funded by a portion of the state's lodgings tax take, will embark on an advertising campaign that will reach out to golfers, outdoors enthusiasts, Midwestern retirees and residents of the major Southeastern metropolises.
Foster said that in the next two months the Convention and Visitors Bureau will continue an idea begun last year to give out wads of postcards to snowbird clubs, asking them to send word back home -- which is typically the Midwest -- that Alabama's beaches have recovered from Ivan and are back in business.
About 10,000 postcards have been printed with beach scenes and are ready to be distributed among winter visitor organizations.
"The snowbirds that came last year said, 'Wow, you guys have really made progress," Foster said. "And they went back and told their sons and daughters and grandkids, 'Boy, that Gulf Coast looks good,' and so then you saw a rise in our spring break business and some of that was reflected in our summer business."
In spring the Convention and Visitors Bureau's Gulf Shores/Orange Beach logo will be prominent on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's special Web site for April's Masters Golf Tournament, Foster said. For $18,500 the bureau secured a top sponsorship for what it hopes will be the most viewed Web site in the golf world.
Other efforts, according to a draft of the bureau's advertising plan, include a full-page ad slated to run in 600,000 circulation Oprah magazine in April; multimedia campaigns in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Nashville and others; and a presence in convention meeting programs and well-known magazines such as Southern Living, Good Housekeeping and Readers Digest.
"We feel like we're on this upward spiral that really is feeding itself," Foster said. "Because in addition to the marketing that we all do, we also have happy customers who are going home and telling their friends and neighbors, 'It's great, go on down.'"
BALDWIN LEADS
Through October, Baldwin County collected a greater market share of the $947 million in lodgings tax revenue generated along the northern Gulf Coast's beaches in 2006 than any of the five Florida counties it competes with for visitors.
Baldwin County: 24.01 percent
Walton County: 23.98 percent
Okaloosa County: 20.22 percent
Bay County: 18.79 percent
Escambia County: 11.03 percent
Santa Rosa County: 1.97 percent
Source: Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau
Published By Mobile Press Register
Monday, January 08, 2007
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
ORANGE BEACH -- After a storm-driven dip, Baldwin County has regained its No. 1 tourism ranking among the northern Gulf Coast's counties with beach destinations, according to a new study.
Baldwin County collected $227 million in lodgings tax revenue through October for a 24 percent share of the $947 million generated among it and five Florida panhandle counties during that time, according to a Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau report.
Hurricane Ivan struck a devastating blow to Baldwin's beaches in 2004, but until the September storm it had been a benchmark year for tourism. The next year was mired in Ivan cleanup and two close calls with hurricanes Dennis and Katrina.
By 2006, the beach was, for the most part, back and ready for tourists, and, measured in lodgings tax revenue, amounted to 92 percent of 2004's high.
"Our goal for'07 is to increase by 15 percent over'06," said Mike Foster, vice president of marketing for the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. "It's a huge challenge, but it's one, as we look forward, we think we can do. We've got a lot of very, very positive factors going for us."
Among those: the anticipated opening of three major commercial developments that will add millions of square feet of retail and restaurant space, a record-setting 1,346 condo units and hotel rooms hitting the rental market, and an advertising campaign that is expected to top $1 million.
The restaurants, movie theaters, shops and other attractions that are planned as part of the large commercial projects under way -- The Wharf and Bama Bayou in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores' Colonial Pinnacle at Craft Farms -- will help lure more-affluent visitors and give them places to spend their money, Foster said.
The 1,346 condo units and hotel rooms expected to open this year are a part of a larger two-year boost in rooms that will see the total available along Baldwin's beaches grow from 14,436 available at the moment to 16,724 by the end of 2008. That number, according to Convention and Visitors Bureau data, put Orange Beach and Gulf Shores ahead of international cities including Sydney, Australia; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Vancouver, British Columbia, in tourist capacity.
Foster said the Convention and Visitors Bureau only counts units in buildings that are under construction and those which allow vacation rentals. The figures do not account for beach houses that are rented short-term or hotel rooms, which number in the hundreds, located in Foley.
While the way that visitors book their trips is changing -- more make reservations online and more wait until the last minute -- their numbers, in the end, are growing, said Sarah Kuzma, corporate relations director at Meyer Real Estate.
It may be hard to predict occupancy rates for the 2,000 rental properties the Gulf Shores company manages, but Kuzma said, "We're really optimistic about'07."
Marie Curren, director of marketing and reservations for Brett/Robinson, said that revenue-wise the company had the best year in its history last year and expects to beat those benchmark numbers. Already bookings in the conglomerate's 1,889 condo units are up 15 percent this year.
A new Orange Beach condo tower, Phoenix on the Bay II, will open this year, boosting Brett/Robinson's rental stock by about 5 percent, Curren said. The company, she said, is confident that it will be able to maintain high occupancy rates with the added inventory because of the local business culture in which competing firms, such as Brett/Robinson and Meyer, are more focused on pushing Alabama's beaches, often referring customers back and forth, than they are at putting one another out of business.
"The more everyone works together, it benefits the community so much more than being at each other's throats," Curren said. "Rather than have them go to Destin, let's keep them in the neighborhood."
And to get them, the well-heeled tourists, to Alabama's beaches in the first place, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, a quasi-governmental agency funded by a portion of the state's lodgings tax take, will embark on an advertising campaign that will reach out to golfers, outdoors enthusiasts, Midwestern retirees and residents of the major Southeastern metropolises.
Foster said that in the next two months the Convention and Visitors Bureau will continue an idea begun last year to give out wads of postcards to snowbird clubs, asking them to send word back home -- which is typically the Midwest -- that Alabama's beaches have recovered from Ivan and are back in business.
About 10,000 postcards have been printed with beach scenes and are ready to be distributed among winter visitor organizations.
"The snowbirds that came last year said, 'Wow, you guys have really made progress," Foster said. "And they went back and told their sons and daughters and grandkids, 'Boy, that Gulf Coast looks good,' and so then you saw a rise in our spring break business and some of that was reflected in our summer business."
In spring the Convention and Visitors Bureau's Gulf Shores/Orange Beach logo will be prominent on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's special Web site for April's Masters Golf Tournament, Foster said. For $18,500 the bureau secured a top sponsorship for what it hopes will be the most viewed Web site in the golf world.
Other efforts, according to a draft of the bureau's advertising plan, include a full-page ad slated to run in 600,000 circulation Oprah magazine in April; multimedia campaigns in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Nashville and others; and a presence in convention meeting programs and well-known magazines such as Southern Living, Good Housekeeping and Readers Digest.
"We feel like we're on this upward spiral that really is feeding itself," Foster said. "Because in addition to the marketing that we all do, we also have happy customers who are going home and telling their friends and neighbors, 'It's great, go on down.'"
BALDWIN LEADS
Through October, Baldwin County collected a greater market share of the $947 million in lodgings tax revenue generated along the northern Gulf Coast's beaches in 2006 than any of the five Florida counties it competes with for visitors.
Baldwin County: 24.01 percent
Walton County: 23.98 percent
Okaloosa County: 20.22 percent
Bay County: 18.79 percent
Escambia County: 11.03 percent
Santa Rosa County: 1.97 percent
Source: Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau
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