PETER CRANIS: Tourism Office Poised to Launch Biggest Fall Marketing Campaign Ever at $1.5 Million in October

Brevard going on 16 straight 'best month ever' TDT numbers, April 2021 to July 2022

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Hard fall or soft landing – that is the question in my head these days when thinking about the economy and tourism. We have experienced record growth in the county when it comes to tourism numbers with our Tourist Development Tax (TDT) collections and Room Night Demand exceeding all previous numbers by far.

In fact, we are going on 16 straight “best month ever” TDT numbers from April 2021 through July 2022. So what does the future hold?

I recently reported that consumer surveys are showing that more and more people are concerned about the economy and may be taking trips closer to home over the next six months.

But how does that potentially impact us? We’ve seen some slight improvement in gas prices in the last month or so, but we still have winter ahead of us and typically fuel prices increase as the weather gets colder up north.

There is still a pilot shortage, and that has caused some cancellation of routes including Concord to Melbourne by Allegiant. But that doesn’t necessarily mean doom and gloom for us.

Fall typically marks a slow-down period for travel. Kids are back in school, and until the holidays, people tend to take shorter trips anyway.

We play well in the drive market as there are over 40 million people within an 8-hour drive of us. We are poised to launch our biggest fall marketing campaign ever at $1.5 million beginning the first week of October.

So, I would say all things being equal, we are in a good position. However, if we see some kind of major pullback in the economy where people hold off on fall travel in lieu of waiting until the holidays, we could see a bit of a slowdown.

Looking at the most recent STR (hotel data) forecasting report, it shows we can expect occupancy to drop in September and then slowly build through January. The challenge with an overall slowdown is that we now have 1,500 more hotel rooms than we had back in 2019 and over 1,000 more vacation rental units (these average about two rooms per unit).

Keeping demand up to fill those rooms is a job that takes a lot of energy and effort. As I always say, we are up to the task, but from September – January we may have our work cut out for us.

Then as we look to next Spring and Summer which are our busiest seasons, I believe we will be back in a good position with our normal travel pattern.

According to the hotel forecast mentioned, we should see higher Occupancy, ADR, and RevPar (Revenue Per Available Room) come March, and it is predicted to set all-time high records. At least that’s how things look right now, but as always, as market conditions change we will monitor and adapt as necessary.

– Peter Cranis, Space Coast Office of Tourism Executive Director

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