Increase in trips on this holiday weekend

The trip is expected to take place on Memorial Day weekend.

Expect crowded airports and busy hotels and be unlucky enough to find cheap rental cars if you head to Florida for the Memorial Day vacation weekend. However, if you need a last minute COVID-19 shot, Miami International Airport is the place.

“We now expect more than 115,000 passengers a day this weekend through Tuesday, which is what we had before the 2019 pandemic,” said Greg Chin, communications director for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, in an email.

As an added bonus, travelers are offered the COVID-19 vaccine in some locations.

Henry Hernandez and Karina Gonzalez, of Bogota, Colombia, said they were grateful to have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine when they arrived at Miami International Airport on Friday morning. The Florida Emergency Management Agency organized the effort, which will run through May 30.

The couple traveled to Miami with their children Juan Sebastian, 2 and Laura, 6 to visit the family in the nearby Miami Gardens. It’s her first trip since the coronavirus pandemic began.

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“We had no idea that we could get vaccinated. … There are no vaccines in Colombia,” he said.

Hernandez said they felt safe traveling and will wear their masks throughout their stay.

The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau expects hotel occupancy to rise above pre-pandemic levels, said agency CEO Rolando Aedo Miami Herald. The visitor office assumes that nationwide hotel occupancy will be up to 8% higher on Saturday than on the same day in 2019.

“We’ve been through so many crises as a travel destination and the trend has been pretty consistent,” said Aedo. “We tend to outperform other recovery goals.”

But the crowd doesn’t just go to South Florida. The Orlando area is also booming with travelers as the major theme parks have eased some of the COVID-19 restrictions since they reopened last summer.

“Our Memorial Day passenger forecast shows we are nearing 90 percent prepandemic, which is evidence of central Florida’s resilience,” said Phil Brown, chief executive officer of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, in a press release. “A combination of factors such as vaccines, seat availability in the market and pent-up demand point to a potentially strong summer travel season.”

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During last year’s Memorial Day vacation weekend, Orlando International Airport recorded 45,415 departures, compared to an estimated 300,000 departures this year, Brown said.

“Most Florida areas are in high demand and we are definitely anticipating sell-out areas in Orlando, Tampa, St. Pete,” said Jonathan Weinberg, CEO and founder of AutoSlash.com Spectrum News 13 in Orlando.

That’s because the pandemic and the shortage of chips have made rental cars scarcer, prices skyrocketed, and long waits when people go back to travel. Rental companies sold many of their vehicles during the pandemic and struggled to get new cars as car dealers diverted vehicles from fleet buyers to more profitable sales to consumers. The increased demand has sent some rental companies to the used car market to find vehicles.

The vacation weekend comes as Florida’s number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations for COVID-19 decline. The state added 2,338 coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the cumulative total to 2.3 million. The state also reported that as of Wednesday, 10.2 million people – about 48% – of Floridians had received at least one vaccination shot, including 8 million, or 38%, who were fully vaccinated.