By Ed Offley
After three years of wild swings in tourism stemming from Hurricane Michael and the Covid-19 Pandemic, Panama City Beach officials are confident the 2022 season will bring a return to stability and measured growth.
Tourist resorts, area restaurants and other businesses catering to visitors have ridden a roller coaster since Hurricane Michael slammed the Panhandle in October 2018. A six-month ban on tourist rentals to accommodate recovery workers after the storm was followed in short order by the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020, followed by a stronger-than-projected surge in tourists last year as the country began to come out of isolation.
“Last year we had a 50-percent (visitation) increase over the pre-pandemic year 2019,” said Tourist Development Council President Dan Rowe. “It would be very hard to sustain that level of attendance; I think we will see a market correction this year. But it will still be a very successful year.”
Jayna Leach, Vice President of Marketing for the TDC, said one favorable consequence of the pandemic has been the “discovery” of Panama City Beach and its 27-mile beachfront by residents of areas that historically have vacationed elsewhere. “It was exciting during the pandemic to see visitors from the New York and New Jersey areas discover Panama City Beach as a destination ,” she said. Other areas with a growing interest include the Midwest, Texas and other parts of the Northeast.
Rowe and city officials pointed to attendance levels at the 2022 Mardi Gras festivities held at Pier Park on February 12-13 as a harbinger of a strong tourist season this year. While the events were open to the public and no formal attendance levels were recorded, it was obvious that the two-day festival brought in a record number of attendees.
“This was the biggest crowd we’ve seen, both for the afternoon concert [at Aaron Bessant Park] and the parade,” Rowe said.
Panama City Beach spokeswoman Debbie Ingram agreed. “While we can’t give an accurate crowd estimate, we can say it was one of the largest events in Pier Park ever in regard to the amount of vehicular and pedestrian traffic,” Ingram said.
Rowe said his staff estimates that beach visitation in 2022 will run between 25 and 30 percent over the 2019 benchmark.
Under its charter, Panama City Beach’s primary revenue source is a 1-percent tax on gross business receipts. For the entire 2020-21 fiscal year spanning October 1, 2020 to September 30, the city took in $17.08 million in tax receipts, a 42-percent increase over 2019. Rowe’s projection of a 25-percent tourism increase over 2019 suggests the city can expect to reap a minimum of $15 million in business receipts in 2022.
“We will do very well this year,” he said.
In anticipation of the influx of spring visitors beginning next month, City Council last month reenacted a set of ordinances put in place each year since 2016 that are aimed at preventing disruptive behavior during the period spanning March 1-April 30 when American colleges and universities are on spring break, including:
• Possession or consumption of alcoholic beverages on the sandy beach, or in commercial parking lots;
• No sales of alcohol after 2 a.m.;
• A ban on overnight scooter rentals and open-house parties.
In addition, City Council has again imposed overnight closure of a specific stretch of the Gulf beachfront that in past years had become the scene of wild and rowdy behavior by groups of young people. The segment runs from the Ocean Ritz condominiums to Public Access 25 just west of the Boardwalk Beach Hotel & Conference Center.
“We can’t take our foot off the gas in regard to ordinances surrounding Spring Break,” said Beach Police Chief Eusebio “J.R.” Talamantez. “Every year we are contacted by major promoters in the industry who want to bring it back. We do not want to return to the activity we saw in 2015.”
