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Doing A Spring Break Flip-Flop

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The New York Times

Published: March 1, 2009

Spring break is back. After years of shunning the traditional college crowd in favor of a more affluent, tamer clientele, hotels and resort destinations are once again rolling out the welcome mat for party-hearty students.

The Sheraton on Grand Bahama Island, which had stopped taking student groups for the last couple of years, is now working with Student City.com, an online student travel agency, and accepting student groups for four-night stays in March for the agency's Bahamas Party Cruise package priced at $589, including taxes and fees.

The Pro Family Spring Break Coalition of Panama City Beach, which in 2007 put out a press release about its efforts to "fight back against college spring break," has disbanded, though the businesses that made up the group still actively market to families.

For the second year in a row the city has teamed up with mtvU, MTV's college network, with two weeks of live performances and undulating student crowds from March 8 to 21.

"We've realized that we need to encourage college students to come but make sure we're not excluding families," said Dan Rowe, president of the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Wild-Child Past

Even Daytona Beach, which continues to market to families rather than students, acknowledged that their business would be welcome.

The change of heart is a significant reversal for many of these beach destinations, which have been trying to shed their wild-child past as spring break meccas by courting families and hipsters with a new message and upscale developments.

But the tough economy is forcing tourism-dependent areas to come up with new ways to attract visitors. And as the luxury market slumps, corporations cancel conventions and families tighten wallets, student travel is showing a certain resilience.

"The student market is always going to be there," said Jacqueline Lewis, managing director of StudentCity.com, which reports "robust" bookings for spring break this year. After working hard at school and saving up, she said, "kids are going to go away."

This year, many are opting for shorter trips - five nights instead of seven - or weeklong trips departing on off-peak travel dates, like Mondays, to keep the trip affordable, she said. Traditional spring break locales such as the Bahamas, Florida and South Padre Island, Texas, had been leading the list toward the end of last year, when early bookers were facing pricey flights. But more recently, destinations like Jamaica, Cancun and the Dominican Republic are getting a boost as flight and hotel costs drop.

Fares Drop 15 Percent

Fares for spring break travel from now through April 5 are down more than 15 percent compared with 2008, reaching roughly the 2007 level, according to Farecast.com, which tracks airfares. Nationally, the average airfare for a spring break trip - departing on a Saturday and returning on a Sunday - is $308, down $60 from last year. Average rates at upscale hotels in popular domestic locations are also down, to about $202 a night, or roughly 15 percent less than last year's prices.

For the college crowd willing to bunk four or more to a room, the savings can be even greater. STA Travel, which caters to students, is offering seven-night hotel deals as low as $199 a person with four people to a room in South Padre Island.

Travelers who want to avoid the spring break crowd might consider Acapulco, which has dropped off the party circuit this year. Bookings are down about 20 percent from last year's, partly because of relatively high flight costs, according to StudentCity.com. By contrast, bookings are up about 10 percent to Cancun and 20 percent to Jamaica.

An influx of students could help struggling tourism regions like Florida, where annual visitor numbers dropped for the first time in seven years to about 82.5 million in 2008, 2.3 percent less than 2007, according to Visit Florida, the state's tourism marketing company. Student bookings to Panama City Beach are up by more than 20 percent, according to StudentCity.com.

But even if they are courting the college crowd, few hotels and resort destinations are eager to promote that fact. Fort Lauderdale, which has moved away from its past as the spring break capital, with luxury hotels edging out wet-T-shirt concert venues, is sticking to its new slogan of "beach chic" and promoting itself mostly to couples and families with young children.

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