TOURIST SEASON HOT (...MOSTLY)
Retailers report mixed winter season results fueled mostly by Europeans and snowbirds
BY EVAN WILLIAMS ewilliams@floridaweekly.com
The departure of Tersa Blanchard, one of Southwest Florida's part-time residents, is a seasonal cue in Lee County like falling leaves are in her summer home, Boston, Mass.

"Every year we stay (in Fort Myers) a little longer, because it's so nice here," Blanchard said. "You wouldn't believe how miserable it is at home. Rain, snow, shoveling. Even when we go home in May, it's rainy."

Her patronage of local businesses in the fall, winter and early spring, along with thousands of other "snowbirds," springbreakers and European tourists, is the fuel that powers Southwest Florida's economic engine - to the tune of $2.9 billion annually, says The Lee County Visitors and Convention Bureau.

That economic engine was running on all cylinders this tourist season according to retailers, restaurateurs and business owners, despite a national economy that some pundits say is slowing to a crawl.

"Traffic was up 15 to 16 percent over last year," said Jeff Staner, general manager of Miromar Outlets, a sprawling mall of over 100 brand name outlets and restaurants off Interstate 75 in South Fort Myers.

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO EVAN WILLIAMS Lurch, a parking attendant at the Lanai Kai on Fort Myers Beach, said Easter's early arrival this year has slowed seasonal traffic.

He said the destination attracts over 8 million customers (including repeats) every year, but added, "With the economy the way it is, the people are buying, but they're not spending as much as they did last year. That's a trend nationwide with the economy, high gas prices and value of the dollar."

Tourists who came to Sanibel Island this season spent more than those on Fort Myers Beach, according to Marty Harrity, who owns Doc Ford's Sanibel Rum Bar & Grille on Sanibel Island and The Beached Whale on Fort Myers Beach.

But both locations did better than last year, he said. "So far, through yesterday, (Doc's) was running about 12 and a half percent ahead of last year. I think a lot of the restaurants on the Island had a good season."

Harrity said his restaurant on Fort Myers Beach did only about one or two percent better than last year, because there's more competition there. He compared the incoming snowbirds and tourists to pie.

shell factory E Owner Tom Cronin said his business was off about 30 percent this year.

"The pie is staying about the same size," he said. "But (on Fort Myers Beach) there are more forks in it."

Dollars, Euros and Loonies There are 20,385 hotel, motel, resort, condo, cottage, RV Park and campground rentals available to vacationers in Lee County as of last month, according to the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau. This February, 76 percent of those rooms were occupied at an average rate of $175.48 per room.

Lee County hosted 470,000 visitors that month alone, although two-thirds stayed with friends and relatives, according to Convention Bureau statistics.

"We've built a lot more places over the last three to five years," said Robert Wells, owner of the Cabbage Key Restaurant, located on Cabbage Key Island north of Captiva, and member of the Tourist Development Council for Lee County. "So we need to have more tourists to fill those."

silver sands E Owner Andrea Carriere said the early Easter didn't help but season was good.

Carol Dover, President of the Florida Restaurant and Lodgings Association, who lobbies for the states service industry, said there may be more tax increases for tourists, higher rental car taxes, bed taxes and other surcharges.

"I think right now the legislature is pondering additional taxes," she said. "That has an impact on everybody. It's just adding another cost to your trip, no different than gas going from $2 to $4. (Tourists) only have so many dollars in the bank.

"This is not the time to tax this industry any more. We're doing everything we can just to keep our heads above water. Tourism is the economic engine of this state and we can't afford to hurt it."

Total Lee County tourist tax collections had already pumped $9.2 million into government coiffeurs by February of this fiscal year. That's over $4 million more than at the same time in 2003/04, when the economy was healthier.

That is due in large part to those taxes increasing from 3 to 5 percent in 2006, but the tourist tax collections are still up modestly, by about $300,000, from last year at this time. (The total collections last year reached just over $22 million, compared to $11.5 million in 2003/04).

fort myers country club E Director of Golf Richard D. Lamb said his club has had a fabulous year.

"One of the biggest factors was the weather this year," said Suya Davenport, executive director of the Lee County Visitor and Convention Bureau. "The winter weather up North always seemed five degrees below average, there always seemed to be a bad snowstorm. Here it was always five degrees above average, always sunny."

Downtown to South Fort Myers In downtown, Morgan House owner Corry Blanton said that in spite of street construction blocking his doors and higher gas and food costs, season was "a little bit better than average." Blanton defines season as Thanksgiving to a last hurrah on Mother's Day, but said local office workers keep lunches steady year round.

"Actually, season really kicks off when they get that first snow up North," he said. "It doesn't effect lunches much. What it effects is your dinner crowd… Your August crowd? - not the bottles of wine, not the appetizers."

Morgan House grill cook Willie Jackson said season is "the way I get busy and make money. The more people the better for us." Also that on a weeknight in February at 7 p.m. he might have 10 steaks on the grill at once; off season, two would be more likely.

South of downtown along US 41 sits the Bell Tower Shops, an upscale shopping mecca with a Saks Fifth Avenue, cinema and hotel. Bistro 41 has been a fine-dining staple there for 11 years.

"Our season was awesome," general manager Cindie Barker said. "I love season, but we love the summer too because then the locals who are afraid to come see us (during the busy season) come back."

Barker said a server can make a good living in those busy months. "I have single girls who drive brand new cars. I have fathers who make mortgage payments and support their wives. Servers are independent contractors - it's how good you are and how much you want to work and how much knowledge you have invested in the restaurant."

A full-time breakfast server at The Lighthouse Café on Sanibel Island can make upwards of $40,000 a year, said owner Bill Hiemer. "Our girls come in at 6 a.m., leave at 4 p.m., and wait on 200 plus people, in season."

And they do even better if they stay on and work through the slower summer, Barker said, instead of taking vacations, spending the cash they saved, or looking for jobs in busier Northern states."I try to encourage servers not to look for greener pastures (in the summer), and cultivate their local guests. But if they wanna go, let 'em go."

North Fort Myers "We will do more business in March than July, August and September combined," said Tom Cronin, owner of The Shell Factory and Nature Park, which includes the gift shop, restaurant, miniature golf, bumper boats, a nature park, three museums and a watershow at night. "Business this year was off about 30 percent because of the economy."

Cronin hopes advertisements aimed at families and the local market will help it recover. "Like this family walking across here now," Cronin said, from his office overlooking the parking lot and restaurant.

"We didn't anticipate the drop, but we're adjusting to it."

His wife, Pam, president of Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce, said the locals are already coming back. For example, 400 red hat ladies were scheduled to visit the Factory the next day.

"We love tourists but miss the locals," she said.

She noted gas, surcharges and the cost of flying is all up. And that one way people are traveling economically, within the state, is by group tours and bus tours. "I see that continuing. It's that statewide market."

North Fort Myers resident Scott Schwartz was at the Factory last week with his wife Lynda and their sons Devin, 6 and Logan, 8.

"I don't like (tourist season) at all," he said. "You can't go shopping without waiting in line for half an hour."

Lynda said the Factory has lots for kids.

"It's got sharks," Devin said, holding a small stuffed shark doll from the gift shop. "And it's got Homer in it," said Logan, holding up a stuffed Homer Simpson doll.

Dick and Virginia Hawkins from Indiana sat on a bench at the entrance to the gift shop waiting for their daughter and son-in-law, who they'd brought there, from their seasonal home in North Fort Myers. They will return to Indiana the last week in April.

"We like summer year-round, so it's gonna work out fine," Dick Hawkins said.

The Edison & Ford Winter Estates "Easter is a huge mark and usually the week or two after Easter we see a big drop off," said Lisa Sbuttoni, marketing manager at The Edison & Ford Winter Estates.

Visitors to The Estates on McGregor Boulevard, overlooking the Caloosahatchee River near downtown Fort Myers, reach up to 1,200 people per day during season's peak and top off at 500 per day over the summer.

"There are a lot of Europeans," she said. "Whether German or Dutch, it's hard to tell where they're from."

Sbuttoni said she tries to listen to the accents and figure out where they originated. The Estates are also getting groups of schoolchildren from Sarasota and Bradenton, plus high school and college students on late spring breaks.

"I'm from New York and my friend's a school teacher there and she's in Aruba," Sbuttoni said. "So there are other breaks going on and some of them are coming here."

The beaches About an hour and a half drive southwest of the Estates, beyond Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel, among the multi-million dollar real-estate of Captiva Island, a restaurant called The Bubble Room has seen similar effects. This is their 20th year on the Island.

"Typically we count season from President's day weekend to about two weeks past Easter," general manager Jim George said. "But a lot has changed because kids are out of school at different times."

Ken Conidaris, a manager at the Lanai Kia, which has been on Fort Myers beach over 30 years, said it was a good season and the hotel is still 85 percent full.

"We're getting a lot more Canadians and Europeans because the Euro is so strong," he said.

He said even if higher gas costs, taxes and surcharges end up costing customers more, "they still try to find time to take their vacations."

"Let's face it," he added. "If prices go up, you have to raise prices accordingly. That's what's to be expected."

Andrea Carriere, owner of Silver Sands Resort on Fort Myers Beach agreed. "When it's freezing up North they will come," she said. "No matter what the gas prices are."

They might come, but they won't necessarily visit everyone. For Angela Dean, a server at the Waffle House on Fort Myers Beach for the last four years (next door to Silver Sands), this year's tourist season was a bust.

"It was not (profitable)," she said. "Not to me it wasn't. Spring Break isn't like it used to be. It's just gonna get slower now."

The parking attendant and nighttime maintenance man at The Lana Kai, whose name is Lurch ("However you wanna spell it, that's what they call me"), agreed with Dean. He blamed Easter's earliest arrival since 1913.

"Easter hit early - earliest in every- body's memory." he said. "It really screwed everything up. Season wasn't what we expected…

"It could have been much better, but it could have been a lot worse."

But from Mark Kaufmann's perspective, it couldn't get a whole lot better. The 33 year-old Munich, Germany resident was visiting the Edison & Ford Estates with his wife the last week in April. He said their accommodations were nice, the weather was beautiful and since the Euro is worth significantly more than the American dollar, shopping was a real trip.

"(Thomas) Edison is a Renaissance man," he said. "We love to take the opportunity to visit his home. Part of why we came here is the shopping facilities are excellent. Also, my wife is pregnant and there are good facilities. The landscape is excellent and we have never been here to the (South)eastern part of the United States.

"We were just at the Miromar Outlets a couple of days ago and just like insects went in and grabbed a lot of stuff."

About to get sunnier Blanchard's trip back to Boston is a harbinger of deep summer, when even the nights are warm, and maybe you're already sweating in anticipation. Daily cloudbursts provide some relief before the sun steams the wetness off the streets.

"It's gonna get hotter and hotter and the course will get quieter and quieter," said Richard D. Lamb, who has been director of golf for Fort Myers Country Club's Eastwood Golf Course for 32 years. "It gets so quiet here in the summertime. I mean, unbelievably quiet. And if we get typical rains, well…

"There's not many players here after 7 a.m. in August. Working guys are here - sneaking out of work with a few beers and a golf cart."

other views

>> "Tourism seems to be one thing where people are not cutting back. But some travelers are cutting back once they're arriving here." - Suya Davenport, executive director for Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau

>>"It's hard for me to tell if season's over yet because we've had a very good season despite the economy, but we've had a lot of new local business too. We have not slowed down at this point - is it still a lot of tourist people here or are the local people still giving us a lot of business?" - Lisa Tilden, owner of Royal Cleaners in the Bridge Plaza on McGregor Boulevard.

>>"My business is only ice cream, so people can skip it. And the snowbirds are going back now, so we're gonna have to wait and see." - Narendra Patel, owner of Tastee Treat in North Fort Myers.

>>"Some of the businesses don't like it when they leave, but some of the people that work for the businesses love it." - Earl Blevins, Pine Island Resident, who had come to get ice cream at Tastee Treat.

>>"We had a few combined factors: increased fuel costs, which affects travel in a negative way. We also had a lot of windy, overcast days, which weren't ideal for boating. And in spite of all that, our results for February and March have been very strong." - Robert Wells, owner of Cabbage Key Restaurant on Cabbage Key Island, north of North Captiva Island, and accessible only by boat.

>>"One of our customers, 15 years ago, met a man who was wearing one of our t-shirts in the Alps. He had proclaimed on top of the Matterhorn, "Lighthouse Café has the world's best breakfast!" - Bill Heimer, owner of the Lighthouse Café on Sanibel Island.

>>"We always have a turnover rate at the end of season. (The servers) made a bunch of money and they go back home for the summer and follow other seasonal jobs, to Cape Cod or wherever. One kid is going fishing in Alaska. They're young, foot loose and fancy free." - Jim George, general manager of The Bubble Room on Captiva

>>"We're so happy with this season. We were very pleased with attendance and with the diversity of people who came. (Thomas) Edison and (Henry) Ford are internationally famous, and they appeal to an international crowd because of their notoriety." - Lisa Sbuttoni, Marketing Manager for The Edison & Ford Winter Estates

>>"We had a fabulous year here, but the reason we did is because we kept it where the tourist and locals could afford golf." - Richard D. Lamb, director of golf for the Fort Myers Country Club's Eastwood Golf Course.

>>"At the Imaginarium there is little difference in total numbers (during tourist season as opposed to summertime). The demographics are vastly different though. During the season we see a lot of international and out of town visitors mainly in family groups while in the summer we are dominated by our own and campers and the other area camps visiting the Museum. The SWFLMuseum is considerably slower during the summer when compared to season." - Matt Johnson, general manager of The Imaginarium and Southwest Florida History Museum