Oil spill sent Florida visitors to east coast, statistics show

Wonder where those visitors to Florida's west coast went during the oil spill summer?

New hotel business statistics back up what local tourism officials have been hearing on the grapevine: many detoured to beach destinations on the east coast of Florida and nearby states.

Hotel occupancy in July was down or flat from a year earlier in four of five Florida west coast destinations, reported Smith Travel Research of Hendersonville, Tenn., which tracks lodging performance. Eight markets on Florida's east coast were all up, most by double-digit percentages.

"It was the first month where we saw such an increase in tourism on that coast … where it was so east-coast lopsided,'' said David Downing, deputy director of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.

St. Petersburg and Clearwater fared better than other Gulf Coast destinations in the Smith Travel survey for July, with hotel occupancy increasing 2.1 percent from a year earlier. But all of Pinellas didn't do so well, said a consultant hired by the county to track tourism.

Nearly 556,000 overnight visitors came to Pinellas in July, down 16,600, or 2.9 percent, from a year earlier, reported Research Data Services.

For the year through July, the county had nearly 3.4 million overnight visitors, an increase of 13,000, or 0.4 percent, from 2009.

Pinellas tourism officials used $1.1 million from BP this summer for ads to attract Floridians, who knew most of the state's west coast was oil-free. It worked: One-third of all domestic visitors in July came from the Sunshine State, the highest percentage in three years.

Many out-of-state and foreign visitors didn't know or just didn't want to take the chance. Tourism officials in places such as Daytona Beach and Hilton Head Island, S.C., didn't survey their bumper crop of visitors, but could tell many were first-timers steering clear of the oil spill.

"You'd see license plates and talk to people from Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas — which are less of our traditional markets,'' Charlie Clark, spokeswoman for the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, said.

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.