March 30–The Saturday night lines waiting to get into nightclubs and restaurants stretched well into the Jacksonville Beach streets, evidence of a substantial boom in tourists to coastal communities this high season.
Hotel-occupancy numbers provided last week by Visit Jacksonville, Duval County’s tourist bureau, prove that the waiting lines were full of visitors.
“Occupancy [of hotels] was overwhelmingly better,” Visit Jacksonville spokesman Ron Whittington said.
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The weekend of March 21 and 22 alone showed a huge increase in people making reservations at the 1,367 hotel rooms east of the Intracoastal Waterway in Duval County.
Compared with the same weekend in 2013, occupancy on Friday, March 21, was 20.2 percent higher at 84.6 percent and Saturday, March 22, was 14.8 percent higher at 92.1 percent occupancy. Combined, that’s 420 more rooms.
The spring break week of Feb. 9-15 also showed some jumps in occupancy, but nowhere near last weekend’s spike. March 9-15 had a 85.7 percent occupancy rate, up 4.4 percent from 2013, which was 82.1 percent. Feb. 23-March 1 also saw an 11.7 percent jump in hotel occupancy rate at 73.6 percent, up from 65.9 percent in 2013. Three other weeks had slight declines in occupancy rates, but the average daily rates charged for a hotel room showed revenue increases in all those weeks.
“It is for real,” said Sonny Bhikha, partner and owner for the Four Points by Sheraton, Best Western Oceanfront and Holiday Inn Express, hotels all in Jacksonville Beach. “We’re very excited because we feel like the hotel industry is finally coming back, and people are traveling, and things are going in the right direction as far as tourism is concerned.”
While the bars and nightclubs are filling with revelers, Bhikha said visitors filling his hotels are mainly family-oriented travelers. Many are from the Northeast United States, he said, and few are college students on spring break.
That means more money for the coastal economy, Bhikha said.
“The people that stay in our hotels are the ones that are shopping, are the ones that are filling up the gas, are the ones that are eating at the restaurants, are the ones that are going to attractions,” Bhikha said.
The economic impact on the hotels has been dramatic.
All the average daily hotel rates have jumped this year, ranging from $108.14 to $119.99 per night. The highest daily rate a year ago was $109.99 per night.
While there are no statistics for bars and restaurant revenues, managers of nightclubs and lounges say they’ve been inundated with bigger crowds. Business expansion at the Beaches has helped attract visitors.
“There’s more of a variety [of establishments]. Before it was just a few bars,” said Dustin Birden, the general manager of The Shim Sham Room on First Street North in Jacksonville Beach. “That buzz gets around.”
Birden estimated he’s had about a 20 percent increase in visitors to his lounge and has found that many are youth crowd from the inland areas of Jacksonville. But he also has run into many college students on spring break. He said those college kids are largely from areas such as Tallahassee and the students know someone in Jacksonville where they can stay free rather than renting hotel rooms.
Across the street from The Shim Sham Room is The Tavern On First Street, where owner Steve Chelgren said there are also waiting lines on the weekend.
“I think that the Beaches is really becoming the place in Jacksonville to go,” Chelgren said. “Being a native here, I’ve seen downtown [Jacksonville] have its moments and the St. Johns Town Center is a great place to go.
“What they’re doing to make Jacksonville Beach a more pleasing place to come [to] has definitely helped business in Jacksonville Beach grow,” Chelgren said.
Birden agreed that major infrastructure and aesthetics overhauls in the central business district have been the impetus for the influx of crowds and money. The “Downtown Vision” plan was conceptualized in 2005, but work didn’t start until 2011, and it was finished in the business district within the past year.
The city of Jacksonville spent over $7 million laying brick pavers and adding such aesthetic improvements as palm trees and roundabouts — among other highlights that run through the central business district from Beach Boulevard north to Fourth Avenue North. There were upgrades to the SeaWalk for pedestrians along the oceanfront.
Jacksonville Beach City Manager George Forbes said those projects are doing exactly what they were designed to do.
“If you can remember 20 years ago compared to where we are today, there was really nothing downtown” in Jacksonville Beach, Forbes said. “When people come here to Jacksonville Beach now, they come here because we have something unique.”
The combination of public projects, flourishing restaurants and nightclubs, and major renovations at multiple hotels has helped “rebrand” Jacksonville Beach as a welcoming coastal community, Forbes said.
While the construction is done, Forbes said the city is still evolving into a new identity and additional public meetings are scheduled for April to look at ways to enhance the family experience in Jacksonville Beach.
That’s key to the revamped identity, especially following an incident on Memorial Day 2013, when a fight in front of the SeaWalk Pavilion was caught on video that showed a young male stomping on the head of another young male. The incident drew national attention and a backlash from some Jacksonville Beach residents who started a campaign with the slogan, “Townies go home.”
Forbes said that incident was an anomaly, and the amount of new security, paid parking and buy-in from the businesses has turned the corner.
“We are approaching it differently,” Forbes said. “We reinstituted a long-term program on our paid parking. … The whole part of our downtown experience is to make sure people feel safe, and we do have a large police presence.”
There are at least 10 Jacksonville Beach police officers in the downtown Jacksonville Beach area on weekends and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office often assists, Forbes said.
Ultimately, family tourism visitors are going to be the driving force of increased business at the coast, said Christine Wier, chairwoman of the Beaches Chamber organization for JAXChamber.
“The Beaches is not only a destination for people out of town, but the Beaches is a destination for all of Jacksonville,” Wier said.
“Now that the recession is coming to an end and people are coming back on their family vacations, they’re going to see that [coastal revitalization], and hopefully this will be a destination where they come every year.”
Drew Dixon: (904) 359-4098
