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Oil Spill Changing Landscape of Florida Vacation Rentals
To avoid potential oil spill, tourists may opt for East Coast and Orlando.
June 6, 2010— -- With the BP oil slick closing in on coastlines from Louisiana to Florida, owners of vacation rental properties are bracing for an unsteady summer season.
But there are some areas where the slick may in fact boost reservations. Orlando, for instance -- nice and sunny and far from shore.
"I would not say that it's off the charts, but we have started to receive inquires," Sara Moore, vice president of marketing for All Star Vacation Homes, a vacation property renter in Orlando, told ABCNews.com. "People are traveling to Orlando. This summer is up from last year."
Those inquiries, said Florida Vacation Rental Managers Association president Paul Hayes, are coming from people who have decided to trade the beach for the many tourist attractions that call Orlando home. The trend is just beginning, he said.
In Florida, tourism is a $60 billion industry, and tourism professionals plan to do what they can to keep that business going. If Florida's gulf coast is threatened by oil, the state hopes the east coast will get a second look from vacationers.
Steve Milo owns a vacation rental company in Saint Augustine Beach, right on the Atlantic. He says his property occupancy rate in May rose 50 percent over this time last year, and advanced bookings for June, July and August are up 300 percent over last summer. Those trips are "mostly weekly or short term trips," said Milo.
As the U.S. economy begins to bounce back, Florida has already seen more than 22 million visitors in 2010 and some of Milo's increased occupancy rates are part of that. Still, Milo is finding customers running from beaches that might end up in the oil slick's path. Two families "from Missouri and Atlanta who would normally go to the west coast," he said, "are coming east."
Property managers on the Gulf coast aren't letting their customers run east without a fight. At Pinnacle Port in Panama City Beach, general manager Ronda Holley is offering customers a "'white sands guarantee,' meaning if oil does show up, we'll give them a full refund and an allowance to come back another time." Holley says they haven't had to give it out yet because "our beaches are full and people are having a great time."
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