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Tourism Can Ease Recession Damage, Consultant Says

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By TED JACKOVICS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 17, 2008

CLEARWATER - Pinellas County's tourism consultant said Wednesday that he thinks the nation already has entered a recession, although the effect on tourism might not be as bad as others think if the industry takes steps to promote itself aggressively.

Still, the number of overnight visitors keeps falling in Pinellas, which showed three consecutive months of declines through November, according to the latest data released Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the Pinellas County Tourism Development Council.

"What you do to promote the industry is critical," said Walter Kluges, of Tampa-based Research Data Service and an economist. "Our market is not recession-proof."

According to Kluges' report Wednesday:

•Pinellas reaped $3.1 billion in direct visitor industry revenue through the first 11 months of 2007, up 3.6 percent from the year-ago period.

•November showed a 1.2 percent decline in overnight visitors to Pinellas to 283,300, compared with the same month a year ago. Yet visitors' overall expenditures rose 0.3 percent to $194.8 million. November's decrease in overnight visitors to Pinellas follows a 0.5 percent drop in October and a 0.3 percent decline in September compared with the same months in the previous year.

•The median household income of visitors to Pinellas in November was $108,767, compared with $105,618 a year ago, indicating a niche that might not be affected as much as lower-income travelers.

In another indicator of a possible slowdown in local tourism, passenger traffic at the Tampa Bay area's main airport declined in November and December, said Tampa International Airport director of air service development Trudy Carson.

At the Bay area's other commercial airport, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport director Noah Lagos said low-cost airlines serving Pinellas were not expected to increase fares as much from small-market destinations like Peoria, Ill., as airlines elsewhere flying transcontinental routes.

Kluges, however, pointed to some worrisome signs beyond Pinellas to alert visitor industry officials about what might be in store.

Statewide, only the high-end hotels in Naples among Florida beach destinations didn't show a decline in hotel room demand in November, Kluges said, citing from a report by Smith Travel Research of Hendersonville, Tenn.

The Smith Travel report showed a 0.9 percent hotel room demand gain in the United States in November, versus November's 1.4 percent decline in Florida when compared with the same month a year ago.

In Orlando, the visitor industry posted a 4.8 percent gain in November hotel room sales after Orlando tourism officials launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign. By contrast, Tampa, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, Jacksonville and the Florida Keys were in decline, the Smith Travel report said.

Smith Travel showed that Hillsborough County room demand was down 9.8 percent in November and 3.7 percent for the first 11 months of the year compared with 2006 figures.

One factor affecting the numbers is that the United States and Pinellas County suffer from increased competition from foreign tourism destinations, such as Dubai and Libya, said D.T. Minich, director of Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater.

In one effort to stimulate local visitor interest, Minich said the Pinellas visitors' bureau is continuing to try to implement a program to market Pinellas County at Orlando Sanford International Airport, which hosts numerous charter flights from Europe.

Plans to place video screens touting Pinellas beaches and attractions, however, have been delayed by the Department of Homeland Security. The federal agency has asked Pinellas to move their promotional video elsewhere at the airport terminal and include a 30-second Homeland Security message within the Pinellas marketing video.

The three-year contract, if it goes forward at the Orlando airport, would cost $165,033 and run from April through March 2011.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7817.

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