Published: Friday, December 24, 2010, 5:34 AM
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Two months ago, as coastal leaders were working to win back visitors with a series of high-profile concerts, a married couple from Marshall, Texas, left a note in a condominium guest book.
They had been coming to the area for 25 years, they wrote, but had decided to travel to Mexico during the summer because of the BP PLC oil spill.
Curious about how Alabama’s beaches were faring, they returned for a Brad Paisley show in Gulf Shores.
“October was great — less crowds — more laid back,” their note stated. “We were happy to see that Gulf Shores and Orange Beach haven’t changed.”
They promised to return.
Comments like that one have delivered a boost of confidence for coastal communities trying to revive tourism after a summer wrecked by the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
“In one little note is exactly what we’ve been trying to do,” said Mike Foster, vice president of marketing for Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism. “We’re trying to create almost a viral campaign — that Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are OK.”
New data, released this week, show that the concert series helped spark bigger crowds this fall than a year ago. October’s retail sales jumped 9 percent from last year, while lodging revenue rose by more than 5 percent.
Hotel occupancy kept moving upward in November, increasing almost 6.5 percent.
Still, room costs were much less expensive, on average, than before, down 44 percent. November’s actual lodging revenue figures were not yet available.
Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon described the concert series as “tremendous” and said that plans were in motion to launch an eight- or nine-month run of musical shows starting in March.
Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft has been pushing oil giant BP to continue marketing the clean beach. He said that the fall events not only generated needed revenue, but showed off the coast’s recovery from the spill.
“It’s very important that we get the word out early so that we can try to build momentum,” Kennon said. “We need a big summer next year to help our merchants get out of the deep hole that was dug for them by BP.”
Foster said he believes that more and more tourists will start to return in 2011. “We feel very, very confident we will re-win the hearts and minds of those people who have loved us for years and years and years,” he said.
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