Pinellas tourism may set information in 2021 following crush of pandemic

After the coronavirus pandemic hit Pinellas County’s tourism in 2020, there was uncertainty about how long a recovery would take.

Early data suggests 2021 could be the year of the comeback.

According to Steve Hayes, CEO of Visit St. Pete / Clearwater, the county’s tourism industry, hotel occupancy in Pinellas County was 82 percent in April, 4 percentage points higher than April 2019, the highest-performing year in history.

In March, Pinellas collected $ 9.7 million in bed tax, the 6-cent levy on hotel and motel stays. This made Pinellas the most lucrative March so far.

“I thought there was a typo?” Hayes said when he saw the data this week.

Tourism is booming in Pinellas County as society emerges from the depths of the coronavirus pandemic and the potential for 2021 is set as the most profitable year ever. The year got off to a strong start even without the overseas and business travelers who are usually part of the market but who are absent in advance due to international restrictions and the delay in corporate bookings.

Hayes said “we could almost beat the 15.2 million visitors” who came to Pinellas in 2019, the busiest tourism year ever.

“I’ll add the constraint if nothing else happens,” like a hurricane or an environmental disaster, Hayes said. “You know the travel industry for us, a little hiccup and boom, it could lead to declining numbers again.”

Founding partner Tommy Del Zoppo said that not only did summer and fall bookings exceed occupancy and rates for the three New Hotel Collection venues in Pinellas County, but also bookings for summer and fall.

The Cordova Inn Concierge Grant Nichols, 58, can be seen in St. Petersburg on Friday, May 14, 2021. Initial data shows that 2021 will be a good year for tourism and will surpass 2019. The Cordova Inn has 32 rooms and is currently 100 percent occupied. [ CHRIS URSO | Times ]

His company bought the Cordova Inn in St. Petersburg in December amid the uncertainty of the pandemic. Del Zoppo said the decision was partly due to heavy occupancy at his Harborside Resort in Indian Rocks Beach and the Beachside Hotel in Indian Shores after Governor Ron DeSantis allowed bars and restaurants to reopen with restrictions last May and June.

“Our best four months in the history of this company were June, July, August and September emerging from the pandemic. For us this was a strong indicator that the system had a lot of catching up to do,” said Del Zoppo. “We felt very comfortable with this purchase that it would be a good acquisition.”

Tommy Del Zoppo, 56, Chief Investment Officer and Co-Founder of the Cordova Inn, poses for a photo in the lobby in St. Petersburg on Friday, May 14, 2021. Initial data shows that 2021 will be a good year for tourism and will surpass 2019. The Cordova Inn has 32 rooms and is currently 100 percent occupied. [ CHRIS URSO | Times ]

While 2020 wasn’t the worst year for tourism in Pinellas County, it had some of the worst months on record, robbing the area of ​​millions of dollars in bed taxes that help fund marketing and infrastructure projects. According to Visit St. Pete / Clearwater, April 2020 was the worst single month in its history with an average hotel occupancy of 20 percent.

In 2020 there were 35,000 fewer tourism jobs than in the previous year. Tourism had an impact of $ 5.8 billion – $ 3.2 billion less than in 2019.

Tourism started a slow recovery after the April 2020 low, but the rest of last year still brought uncertainty.

At the start of the pandemic, Hayes said he was asked to predict how he expected the end of 2020.

“I under-forecast,” Hayes said of the $ 48 million in bed taxes. That’s $ 14 million less than 2019.

Jeff Thompson, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach Resort & Spa, said his hotel had just had its best spring break in 11 years.

He said the hotel was packed with visitors from the Midwest and Southeast, as well as in-state travelers looking for a change of scene.

In September, Visit St. Pete / Clearwater launched a $ 2 million marketing campaign to promote the area’s support for social distancing and the wearing of masks. The county passed an ordinance in June requiring masks to be used indoors in most public places, but it ended with DeSantis Earlier this month, all local mandates were declared invalid.

“This goal has proven popular in part because of all of the security measures,” Thompson said.

At the TradeWinds Island Resort on St. Pete Beach, manager Travis Johnson said his summer bookings and prices are also ahead of 2019, its best year.

According to the US Travel Association, nationwide travel expenses in March were $ 69.5 billion, up from the last four months but 31 percent below March 2019. More than seven in ten American travelers are planning summer vacation, the group reported on April 29th.

Johnson said although the resort lacks corporate reservations, which are typically booked a year in advance, short-term visitors have more than made up for the loss in business travel.

And because the rates for transients are higher than for groups, profits have surpassed TradeWind’s record for 2019, Johnson said.

“It’s all this pent-up demand,” he said. “People are feeling more comfortable and vaccines have played a big part in that.”